Holly Jolly
by kototyph
Summary: "Cas," Sam says, looking horror-struck. "You can't be alone on Christmas." [Alternate Universe - Canon, Stanford Era, Pining, Christmas, Bobby's House, Traditions Food, Families of Choice, Brothers Being Brothers Being Brothers, Tiny Bit of Action/Adventure, tiny bit of gore, Much More Holiday Schmoop, Sleepy Kisses, Cuddling & Snuggling, Sastiel Big Bang 2013]
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Holly Jolly  
**Author: **kototyph  
**Artist:** meinarch (please go to livejournal or AO3 to see the beautiful art! linked in profile)  
**Pairing/Characters:** Sam/Castiel, strong hints of Dean/Gabriel  
**Rating:** soft R  
**Word Count: **~24k  
**Warnings/Tags:** Alternate Universe - Canon, Stanford Era, Pining, Christmas, Bobby's House, Traditions Food, Families of Choice, Brothers Being Brothers Being Brothers, Tiny Bit of Action/Adventure, tiny bit of gore, Much More Holiday Schmoop, Sleepy Kisses, Cuddling & Snuggling, Sastiel Big Bang 2013  
******Author Notes: **This work is part of a series, but can be read as a stand-alone piece.

**Summary:**

"Cas," Sam says, looking horror-struck. "You can't be alone on _Christmas_."

* * *

**Holly Jolly - Chapter One**

* * *

"—and just because he's some kind of, of _Scrooge_ who never goes home or sees his family doesn't mean there aren't people who _do_," Sam finishes with a flourish, jabbing the air with his chopsticks. A few sticky grains of rice fall onto his open notebook, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "He's such a dick! Everyone there is such a _dick_, Cas, how did I let myself get talked into taking this job? It's barely minimum wage!"

"Mmhm," Castiel responds, flipping a page. Normally he'd pause to ask exactly what sort of creature a scrooge might be— Sam often peppers his speech with these types of impenetrable popular references— but he's currently quite engrossed in picking the remaining shrimp out of the pad thai, and in editing a heated debate for the Stanford theology department newsletter. They never fail to amaze and amuse, these wild assumptions about his father's intentions.

Sam makes a frustrated noise and stabs his chopsticks into the sesame chicken. "I mean, _Scrooge_. I felt like Bob Cratchit asking for more coal for the fire."

"Mmhm," Castiel says again.

They're both sitting on the floor of the living room, various projects and cheap Chinese surrounding them in concentric rings of binders, textbooks and greasy takeout boxes. Sam's cheeks are red and his eyes are glazed from celebrating his last appearance in moot court, and even Castiel is feeling pleasantly blurred, his vessel's limbs clumsy and slow. The congratulatory vodka, which followed the congratulatory beer after they'd run out, is on its side next to the coffee table— down to a dribble at the bottom of the bottle.

"_Bob Cratchit, _Cas!" Sam, it seems, is heavily invested in his topic. "Isn't there some, I don't know, universal rule that says all student workers have the right to the week of the twenty-fifth off?"

"That is certainly something to check," Castiel agrees absently, tucking loose pages under his chin. He glances up. "You have something on your face."

"What? Oh, thanks," Sam says, scrubbing at his chin with his sleeve. "Anyway, I finally talked him into it, but jeez. I had to tell him this whole sob story about how I hadn't seen my family in years, and I just got in touch with my brother again, blah blah. I mean, it's true, but it still felt weird. He probably thinks I was making it up."

"Yes, of course," Castiel murmurs, carefully marking a more or less correct argument with a smiley face. The proper encouragement is everything.

"Cas, are you even listening to me?"

"With great attention," Castiel says, turning the page again. "You've successfully browbeaten your employers into allowing you to return home for the Christmas holidays. Felicitations."

"Damn straight," Sam says, downing the last of his dubious Solo cup cocktail. "Those guys are such _dicks_."

They work in silence for several minutes after that, until Castiel blinks, blinks again, and lifts his head to frown at Sam.

"Sam?"

He looks up. "Yeah?"

"You're returning home for Christmas?"

"_Yes_, Castiel," Sam says, obviously exasperated. "I am going home for Christmas."

"A home that isn't this home?" Castiel asks, pointing down at their threadbare and rather unfortunately vomit-hued carpet. "Unless— this isn't a home? Is your heart elsewhere, Sam?"

Sam stares at him. "Is my heart—? Oh, home is where the heart is, right. No, this is home, but this is… uh, just one kind of home?"

Castiel continues to stare at him. "Is this one of those questions I should know the answer to?"

Sam shakes his head vigorously. "No, I don't blame you for being confused. It's confusing. There's home, and then there's, like, _home-_home. Like—" he makes a gesture like he's setting something aside. "Here's the apartment, okay? It's where I come home to, after work and school and stuff. That's one home. But I have other homes, places where my family lives, right?"

Castiel considers this. "You said your family lived in cars."

"Not _all _of them do," Sam says, "just Dean and— and Dad, and the Impala— you remember the Impala, right? That's a home, too. But I have other family— well, they aren't really family-family, they're more like family friends, but still _family_, y'know?"

"No," Castiel says slowly. "No, I don't think I do."

"Sorry," Sam says, shamefaced. "It's kind of a com'pla— com'plated— _com-pli-ca-ted _concept. And I'm kind of wasted. Speaking of, where'd the bottle go?"

Castiel points.

"Crap," Sam says mournfully, nudging it with his foot. "Do you think the gas station's still open? What time is it?"

"It's— wait," Castiel says, turning to face Sam more squarely and looking him in the eye. "It is time… for you to purchase a watch."

"Did you just—?" Sam sputters. "Oh _man_, Cas, you have got to work on your delivery," he says, giggling into his empty cup.

"But you're still laughing," Castiel observes, pleased.

"At how _bad _it was," Sam points out, but lifts his hand. It takes Castiel a few seconds to recognize the prompt for a high-five, but he dutifully smacks Sam's upraised palm.

"Don't get me wrong, though, you're a hundred times better than you used to be," Sam adds, climbing unsteadily to his feet via the couch. "And, about Christmas… it's just... well, Dean showing up at Thanksgiving like that. It was... it was good?"

"Yes," Castiel agrees. He likes Dean very much.

"We hadn't seen each other in years, y'know? I told you that?"

"Yes, you did."

"And I missed him," Sam says, ducking his head. "I still miss him. I miss… a lot of things. So I thought— maybe this year I'll go home for Christmas. It could be good," he says, sounding uncertain. He sways on his feet, grabbing the back of the couch for balance. "Right? Maybe?"

"All things are possible," Castiel says, and then a little less serenely, "but where is _home_?"

"Oh! Yeah," Sam says, staggering towards the refrigerator. "My, uh, uncle does this thing at Christmas where he invites his— his hunting buddies, and they have a big dinner. And stuff. It's in South Dakota."

"South Dakota?" Castiel repeats, experiencing a mysterious sinking sensation. South Dakota, as humans see things and now as _he_ must see things, is quite far away from Palo Alto. "How long will you be gone?"

"Uh… about twelve days in total, I think?"

Twelve _days._ "When are you leaving?" Castiel asks, still sinking.

"Friday afternoon," Sam says from behind the refrigerator door. "Right after this litigation exam. It takes more than two days just to get there, so I'm going to start as early as I can."

"That makes sense, I suppose," Castiel mumbles to the vomit-colored carpet, picking at a hole in the bottom of his sock.

He doesn't mean for it to come out as mournfully as it does, but the prospect of twelve days on his own, especially during the season the radio has assured him is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, does not appeal.

Sam wobbles back into view, framed in the alcove he's almost too tall to fit through. "Well, you've got plans, don't you? What about your, uh. Was it your brother? He lives around here or something, right?"

"I believe he has plans of his own," Castiel says carefully. Plans that no doubt involve copious amounts of drink, loose women and ritual sacrifice. The myriad bloody ways he's seen Gabriel celebrate feast days do not bear thinking about. "I'll be fine, I'm sure."

"Other family?" Sam tries. "Friends?"

His face says he already knows or at least suspects the answer, but Castiel answers him anyway. "No one else. Just you. And Dean, I suppose."

It is not precisely a lie, as Sam and Dean are perhaps the only true friends he has on this plane of existence. There is Gabriel's barbed affection, yes, and a handful of other angels— but they are fallen, scattered and weak, much as he is. His closest compatriot from his days in heaven, his sister-captain Anael, lies even further beyond his reach: she is a teenage girl in northwestern Ohio, obsessed with Music Television and a band of boys who inhabit a back street. It will be years before she regains enough of herself to remember him.

"Cas," Sam says, looking drunkenly horror-struck. "You can't be alone on _Christmas_."

Castiel shrugs, looking down again. He's been alone before— far longer, in fact, than he's had Sam. He'll be _fine_.

"Listen," Sam says, stepping back into the main room. "Listen," he says again, dropping to his knees and crawling to where Castiel is sitting on the floor in front of the couch. There's another bottle in his hand, half-full of dark liquid, with an evil-looking squid glaring out at them from the label.

"Listen," he says a third time, maneuvering in next to Castiel. "It's _Christmas_. We'll think of something."

There's a peculiar warmth Sam gives off as a true vessel, the faint vibrations of his soul harmonizing with Castiel's fading grace. He leans into Sam's shoulder and soaks it in.

Sam, oblivious, hefts the squid-bottle. "Hey, I found this in the back of the freezer. Want some?"

Castiel eyes it suspiciously, but when Sam nudges him he lifts his cup. "I believe I will regret this," he sighs.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Sam says, pouring in a generous amount and reaching for the bottle of flat soda wedged in the cushions behind them. "Cheers, or whatever."

* * *

Castiel wakes up on the couch, vaguely thirsty and with a mild headache threatening. The unreasonably bright living room is devoid of visible potable liquids, so he stumbles off the couch with a hand over his eyes and makes his unsteady way to the bathroom.

He finds Sam facedown on the tile floor, and conscientiously refrains from asking after his sense of adventure as he eases him into a sitting position, carefully propping his head up on the toilet lid. Sam appears to appreciate this, and the water Castiel gets him, if his bleary blinks and inarticulate "Hngah," are any indication.

"Bed," he moans after two or three glasses, lifting his arms. Castiel half-helps, half-drags him across the hallway and onto the mattress, tucking the sheets in tightly around his shaking body.

"No more squid," Sam rasps, pulling himself into a tight ball of misery. "Squid bad. We should— should salt and burn the bottle."

"You threw it off the balcony," Castiel reminds him. "It's somewhere in your neighbor's yard."

Sam squints at Cas, a bare sliver of his face showing through the layers of bedding. "Did I really?"

"You were very emphatic about it," Castiel says, edging another glass of water onto the crowded bedside table. A book falls off the opposite side with a loud bang, and Sam gives a whole-body flinch. "Sorry."

"S'okay," Sam mumbles. "It'll be fun, right?"

Castiel's eyebrows draw together. "It will be…? What will be?"

"You coming with me," Sam says, drawing the comforter in closer. "I mean, it'll be a little weird because they don't know you and they're all hunters, and you're not supposed to bring anyone who doesn't _hunt, _but I thought—"

"Sam, wait," Castiel says, crouching down. "Coming with you where?"

Sam blinks at him. "You're coming home with me. For Christmas."

"I am?" Castiel says, confused and suddenly hopeful.

"Uh, didn't we talk about this?"

"About…?"

"About, crap, I don't know. I can't just _leave_ you here, it'd be like leaving a puppy—" Sam winces. "Sorry, you're a not a puppy."

"No, I'm not," Castiel agrees. Perhaps Sam is still a bit intoxicated. That would explain quite a bit.

"Or any kind of pet, really but you're not exactly the most… self-sufficient?" Sam continues. "Okay, start over. Like I said, we're not supposed to bring anyone who doesn't, uh, hunt, but Dean was always bringing his skanks-of-the-week with him— not that you're my _skank_ or something—"

"Sam."

Sam takes a deep breath. "No more squid, okay? My head fucking kills and I can't make my mouth… do the thing. The talking thing." He groans. "Fuck. I want you to knock the bottle out of my hand if I pick it up in a liquor store, okay, Cas?"

"I will," Castiel promises. "Can I really come with you?"

All Castiel can see of Sam is his eyes, but he knows Sam's smiling. "Yeah, Cas. I think I'll feel better with you there."

Castiel begins to smile back, and then frowns. "You said it would be 'weird', though." Weird has not meant good in Castiel's admittedly limited experience.

"Yeah, but it's always weird at Bobby's," Sam assures him. "Last year the voudoun crowd showed up for New Year's."

Castiel nods in understanding. "Ah, yes. I find the _loa_ to be disquieting as well." Gabriel and Papa Legba have an ongoing dispute that has involved far more reanimated corpses than Castiel cares to remember.

Sam snorts. "'Disquieting' is way too mild, dude. Anyway, I haven't actually told anyone I'm coming yet. So they'll probably be too surprised I'm there at all to care much about you."

Something about Sam's carefully flippant tone catches Castiel's attention. "Exactly how many years has it been since you were there?"

Sam is quiet, and after a moment Castiel tentatively says, "Sam?"

"We didn't go every year," Sam says quietly. "It was more of a once every two or three years thing. The last time— God, it was maybe five, six years ago? It was… it's one of the only good memories I have of Christmas." The man-shaped mound of blankets curls in on itself a little tighter. "Maybe it's stupid, but I want that again."

"I don't think that's stupid at all," Castiel says softly. "Rest, Sam. I'll be waiting right here when you wake up."

"… that's a little creepy, Cas."

Castiel pats what he believes is Sam's shoulder. "Nonetheless."

* * *

Of course, there's still the matter of Sam's exams.

Over the course of the week, Castiel is relegated to a mere observer as Sam spends his days at the job that doesn't pay well and his evenings in increasingly panic-filled 'cramming' sessions for his remaining tests, papers and projects. On Thursday night, he and Castiel play host to a mostly-silent study group overshadowed by pervasive air of desperation, and the other students all leave with the same expression of existential dread that settles on Sam's face as he studies well into the morning.

Castiel isn't quite sure what Sam does at work— his impression is one of color-coded filing and the occasional photocopy— but he does know that Sam can't be eating there. He doesn't seem to be eating _anything_ Castiel doesn't forcefully push into his hand. By the time Friday morning comes and Sam trudges for the door, he looks visibly thinner and more haggard than he had at the beginning of the week.

"Wait," Castiel calls, and brings him a sandwich in a plastic bag. They only have breadheels and possibly-expired slices of turkey breast left, but Castiel's tried to thicken it up with tomatoes and cauliflower and some pickles he found in the drawer next to the moldy lemons. The result is a bit lumpy, but Sam takes the bag with a tired smile.

"See you in a couple hours," he says, hollowly.

"Ah, break— break your feet."

Sam stares, then snorts out a laugh. "It's break a _leg, _Cas, you're killing me here."

"That was not my intention at all," Castiel says, worried, but Sam grips his shoulder companionably, still laughing.

"Hey, not literally," he says, giving him a little shake. "Leave that to my finals, right?"

For a moment they're leaning in to each other, faces close and Sam grinning down at Castiel. It's a lovely smile, a lovely mouth, and Castiel remembers with a sudden burst of clarity that he has kissed that mouth. Looking at it now, happy and curved, he thinks that perhaps he would like to kiss it again.

"Bye, Cas," Sam says, stepping back just as Castiel starts to sway forward, and Castiel catches himself on the doorframe and watches Sam disappear down the steep, narrow stairs, nearly bashing his head on the low arch like he always does.

Castiel sighs. "Goodbye, Sam."

It's been three weeks since it happened, and they still haven't talked about the kiss.

"You... haven't talked about the kiss," Gabriel repeats slowly. "You haven't— you_ kissed_ him. _Castiel._"

"Yes," Castiel says impatiently, "and I would like to kiss him again, but circumstances never seem—"

"Stop," Gabriel says, throwing a hand up. The lights of the penthouse dim, the wall-sized television shorts out, and something low and tribal starts playing over the sound system.

"You have my full attention," his brother says, and indeed, on the astral plane his multitudes of fire-limned eyes are all trained on the annoyed flicker of Castiel's _ekam. _"Tell big bro every juicy detail."

"There's nothing to tell," Castiel huffs.

"You kissed someone," Gabriel says, in the same tone with which he'd explained forks. "A human someone, presumably with romantic intent. It was romantic intent, yes?"

"Well," Castiel says, fingers twisting together in his lap. "Maybe?"

"'Maybe'?" Gabriel echoes incredulously. "It's a simple question, Castiel: do you or do you not want to bone the boy?"

"I… I'm not sure," Castiel says evenly, though his wings flare out in embarrassment and a telltale heat blooms in his vessel's cheeks. "I wish you wouldn't phrase it quite so bluntly, it's— it more complicated than that. He's my _friend_."

Gabriel sits back with a strange expression, caught somewhere between amusement and ruefulness. "Ah," he says. "_That_ kind of romantic intent."

Castiel frowns at him. "What do you mean?"

Gabriel shakes his head with a slight smile. "So, you kissed him. What did he do?"

"_Nothing_," Castiel says, aggravated. "He looked at me for a moment, and then he told me I should go to sleep, since it was so late. And we haven't talked about it since."

"Well," Gabriel says thoughtfully, "not outright rejection, then. That's promising."

Castiel gives him a dirty look and Gabriel laughs, smoothing Castiel's ruffled pinions with his own. "I'm serious, Castiel. You might actually get a chance to deflower yourself!"

"Gabriel—"

"Unless," Gabriel says, fingers ready to snap, "you want to get some practice in before you do?"

"_No_," Castiel snaps, and flies off before Gabriel can summon the cheerleaders again.

* * *

He's on the verge of dozing off, lying on the floor in front of the window where the sun shines the hottest, when he hears the door open. The sound of the hinges creaking is followed by a series of thumps as several things hit the floor in succession. The last and loudest thump is followed by a muffled moan.

Castiel's eyes slit open. "Sam?"

"_Kill me now_," comes a rasp like a death rattle, and when Castiel turns his head he sees Sam on the floor, half-in and half-out of the open front door, his face mashed into the carpet.

Castiel pulls him inside and props him up against the couch, bringing him another sandwich (this one with ketchup and tuna). Sam, eyes mostly closed, slowly chews while Castiel closes the door and pries off his coat and shoes.

It's several minutes of Castiel waiting patiently, perched on the chair next to him, before Sam suddenly bolts upwards and yelps, "The bus!"

Castiel brings him his laptop, and Sam blinks rapidly at the screen, scrolling frantically. "We need to leave, _now," _he says, rising unsteadily to his feet. "I forgot to print the tickets, but the student union is on the way, we can stop by—"

There's a knock at the door, and Sam's head jerks up.

"Who—?"

"I'm sure it's just a package, or salesman," Castiel says, pushing Sam helpfully towards the bathroom. "You get your toothbrush. You forgot to pack it this morning. And please use the toilet as well."

"Okay,_ Dean,"_ Sam says with an eyeroll, but he goes.

But the man at the door is not in fact from a parcel delivery service, or vacuum company, or even a local religious association— although technically, Gabriel might fall under the last category. "What are you doing here?" Castiel whispers in horror, glancing over his shoulder.

"I have tickets to Disneyland," the archangel says, apropos of exactly nothing. "Ready to jam?"

Castiel stares at him.

"Weeklong passes," Gabriel adds, holding them up and fanning them out. "One for you, one for me, five for whatever nubile young things we can pick up on the way."

Castiel continues to stare. "Gabriel—"

"Are you ready now?" the archangel says, grabbing a handful of Castiel's shirt. "Let's go now."

Behind Castiel, the bathroom door slams open and Sam yells, "I'm not coming in and you can't make me!"

Gabriel jerks back. "What the hell? _Sam?_"

"I can't believe you followed me home! Go away, Gabriel!"

"You two… know each other," Castiel says, with a dawning sense of horror. "You— you _know_ each other?"

"Wait," Gabriel says, voice lowering, glancing between Castiel and Sam behind him. "Him? He's the boy? _The _boy? You're crushing on _Sam Winchester_?"

"That is private information," Castiel hisses, just as Sam says, "Castiel, do you know this asshole?"

"Castiel is my brother," Gabriel says, folding his arms.

Sam makes a strangled noise, and the sound lengthens unnaturally before fading away. Castiel feels the distinct sensation of time slowing down around him, like standing upright and unmoving in a fast-flowing river, and the room takes on a telltale midnight blue tinge. The sudden quiet is almost deafening.

He sighs. "Gabriel, what are you doing here?"

Gabriel's eyes move between Sam, face frozen in an expression of horrified disbelief, and Castiel. "Your taste in men is a little lacking, Cassie. One of Azazel's brood, really?"

"Gabriel," Castiel repeats patiently. "What are you doing here? And how do you know Sam?"

"Crowley found him," Gabriel says, and Castiel frowns at the demon's name. "It's a couple years too early for any real action, but it always pays to keep an eye on things."

"You… you're the scrooges," Castiel realizes out loud. "His employers," he clarifies, when Gabriel gives him an odd look.

"Yeah, I guess we are. Oh, relax," he says in response to Castiel's growing glare. "We don't abuse him. Much. I doubt he has any idea he's interning at a tri-dimensional smuggling ring."

"Is_ that_ what you're doing?" Castiel asks, aghast. "No, please don't tell me. If Crowley's involved I'm sure I don't want to know."

"Gotta say, that guy is handy," Gabriel says, rocking back on his heels. "Our little Sammy, not so much."

"But Sam has nothing to do with why you're here," Castiel says. "Does he?"

"Hell no. I wanted to see you," the archangel says shortly, and immediately looks like he regrets saying even that much.

Castiel is immediately wary. "What happened? Do you need my help?"

Gabriel snorts and waves him off. "Please. Anything _I'd_ need help with is already miles above your paygrade, brother-mine."

Well versed in Gabriel's tendency to retreat into causticness when feeling defensive, Castiel shifts attention to the tickets still in his hand. "And Disneyland?"

"The happiest place on earth," Gabriel promises. "You'll love it. Splash Mountain especially."

"But right _now_?"

Gabriel spreads his hands. "No time like the present."

"While under other circumstances I'm sure it would be amusing," Castiel begins, and Gabriel's eyes start to narrow, "at the moment, I can't. Sam and I are visiting his family for Christmas."

From the look on Gabriel's face, he has for once well and truly caught his brother by surprise.

"You _what?" _Gabriel asks. "Are you engaged? Are you pregnant?"

"I am _not pregnant_," Castiel says. "Gabriel, I inhabit a male vessel, how could I possibly—? No, I really do not want to know," he says when Gabriel opens his mouth to answer. "The point is that I can't go to Disneyland. Not now."

Gabriel's face closes down, and Castiel's mouth continues on without his expressed permission. "But I'm sure you'd be welcome to join us in South Dakota. If Sam approves. We are taking the bus there."

"I don't take the bus anywhere," Gabriel says mutinously, "and anyway, why the hell would I want to go to South Dakota?"

"Why would you want to go to Disneyland?" Castiel counters.

"Disneyland is _fun_," Gabriel protests. "There's cotton candy and roller coasters, and the Haunted Mansion, which is going to scare the crap out of you. Maybe literally."

"But why do you want to go with me?" Castiel asks. "It can't be because you want to see me— do that." Although it very well could be. He certainly wouldn't put it past Gabriel, who once spent days convincing him crocodiles were domesticated animals just to watch him nearly lose an arm trying to pet one.

"Look," the archangel says, gruffly. "Truthfully? This stupidly tall, floppy-haired intern got a bit uppity with me the other day, said it was Christmas, that he needed to be with his family because he hadn't seen them in a while, whine whine whine, blah blah blah. And I— well."

"We see each other fairly often," Castiel points out, carefully. Because there are whole garrisons, entire choirs that neither he nor Gabriel will ever see again.

"I didn't say it was rational," Gabriel snaps, "I just— forget it, okay? Go visit your boyfriend's parents. I don't care."

There's a sudden rush of wind and a single, massive wingbeat, but before Gabriel can disappear Castiel reaches out a grabs his wrist. "_Wait_."

They fall back into time and Sam is saying, "You're brothers? As in, related? Same parents? Really?"

"Really," Castiel says, still looking at Gabriel. "Sam, can he come home with us?"

"What?" Sam says blankly.

"That's not how it works, Castiel," Gabriel sighs.

Castiel looks over his shoulder to find Sam staring at him. "Sam?"

"You want— him?" Sam says. "Home with us? To South Dakota?"

"Please?" Castiel asks, because it never hurts.

"_Him?_"

"Yes?" Castiel says.

"Uh," Sam says, glancing at Gabriel, who now has an expectant and somehow bitter look on his face.

"What's the matter, Samsquatch?" he asks silkily. "Don't think I'll make a merry addition to your holiday roadtrip?"

Sam's eye twitches. "Can I talk to you in the other room, Cas?" he says, already moving.

"'Cas?'" Gabriel echoes, eyebrows rising.

"Yes, let's," Castiel says quickly, edging after him. "Gabriel, stay," he adds with a last pleading look, and turns and follows Sam into their tiny kitchen-bathroom.

When he turns to face him, Sam is sitting on the edge of the tub with his eyes closed, slowly rubbing circles into his temples. He's had very little sleep in the last few days, Castiel remembers with a pang, and looks it.

"Listen, Cas," he says. "I—"

"I realize Gabriel's personality is abrasive," Castiel says, folding his wings over them to shield the words from the archangel's ears. "And I know that he can be cruel. He is capricious, and occasionally malicious, and often does horrible things just because he can."

"He's the most godawful boss I've ever had," Sam says bluntly. "One of the most godawful people I've ever known."

"I'm sorry for that."

"It's not your fault your brother's an ass," Sam says with a sigh, and it's so similar to what he'd once said about Dean that Castiel risks a smile.

"Sam, please," he presses, quiet and sincere. "He came to see me of his own accord. I can't tell you how rare that is."

"Cas, it's okay," Sam says softly, looking up. "I understand. You can stay with him and I'll go alone, you don't have to—"

"Sam, he wants to take me to Disneyland for the express purpose of seeing me get sick on theme park rides."

"… yeah, that sounds like him," Sam says ruefully. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I would rather go home with you," Castiel says. "But… if you'll allow it, I'd like to bring Gabriel with us."

"You want to have your cake and eat it too."

"I don't understand that reference." Castiel says patiently. "I realize that it's an imposition— we can stay at a hotel, perhaps—"

Sam leans forward, hands rubbing tiredly over his face. "I told you the thing at the house is communal, right? People are always coming in and out, so it's no big deal if I bring guests. But Gabriel is my _boss,_ Cas. And I'm pretty sure he and the other boss hate me."

"He really doesn't," Castiel assures him. "He treats everyone like that."

Sam lets out a choked laugh. "Oh, good."

"I'll make sure he's on his best behavior," Castiel pleads, crouching down and resting a hand on Sam's knee. "Please?"

Sam looks up at the ceiling and sighs hugely. "Fine. God, _fine. _This is going to be the most awkward two weeks of my life, anyway, so why the hell not?"

"Thank you," Castiel says, and before he can lose his nerve, he leans in and kisses Sam, at the corner of his mouth where a dab of ketchup stubbornly clings.

Sam freezes but Castiel is already turning away, his cheeks feeling hot enough to burn. He steps back into the living room to Gabriel's sly grin, his brother sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table.

"So, when do we leave?"

Stepping into the room behind Castiel, Sam says with a certain kind of despairing amusement, "Oh, about fifteen minutes ago."

"Really?" Gabriel looks over his shoulder. "I think our ride is right on time."

"Our what?" Sam says, squinting at him.

And then, to his obvious bafflement, there's another knock at the door.

Castiel looks at it, and looks at Gabriel, who shrugs. "Hey, I had nothing to do with it. He was already on his way."

"_Who_ was?" Sam asks distractedly, pushing past Castiel. Before he reaches the door, though, the knob beings to turn, and it eases open a few inches.

"Uh, hey," a man says, peering into the apartment. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Dean!" Castiel says happily.

"Wha— _Dean_?" Sam says, hands in his hair. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, asshole," Dean says, pushing the door open wider.

"I didn't mean it that way! I just— I didn't even know you were on this coast," Sam says, starting to smile. "Hey, man."

"Hey yourself," Dean says with an answering grin. "C'mere."

As Sam steps up to pull the door the rest of the way open and he and Dean engage in a round of back-slapping hugs, Castiel explains, "Gabriel, this is Dean. Sam's brother."

"I see that," Gabriel says slowly. "You've really got that _hum_, don't you?"

Dean gives him a confused look over Sam's shoulder, but Castiel knows exactly what he means. In close proximity, the celestial song written into Dean's bones is ringing softly in time with Sam's. It's heartbreaking, if Castiel thinks on it too long.

"So, what's up? Something going on?" Sam is asking as they pull away from each other.

"Oh, you know," Dean says, all nonchalance and cocky smile. "I was in the area, thought I'd poke my head in. See what you guys are up to."

"Sure you were," Sam says, but he's still smiling.

"Shut up, bitch," Dean says affectionately. "Having a party? Where's the booze, Cas?"

"Squids have been banned from the premises," Castiel says gravely, stepping up and presenting his hand. He sees Dean glance at Sam silent question before he pulls Castiel in for a half-hug over their shake.

"It's a long story," Sam sighs. "Good to see you again."

"Same," Dean says, releasing Castiel. "Hey, listen, I was thinking— you look like you're in the middle of something now, but later on, if you don't have other plans…?"

"Well, I did," Sam says wryly. "Since derailed."

"Uh, sorry?"

"Not your fault," Sam assures him, and Castiel doesn't think he's imagining the look Sam slants Gabriel's way. He is definitely not imagining Gabriel making moose-ears in response.

"Well then, want do something? We could even head out Bobby's way. He still does that Christmas dinner thing. Or we can stay here with Cas and... whoever the hell you are," he says, waving a hand at Gabriel. "Hi, by the way."

Gabriel's grin is worryingly genuine. "Hey yourself, Dean-o."

"This is my brother, Gabriel," Castiel says, shooting him a quelling look.

"Oookay," Dean says, quite rightly wary. "Nice to meet you. Sam? Whatdya think?"

Sam drops his head and groans out something like a laugh into his hand. "About that..."

* * *

"Well, we've got enough seats," Dean says, walking ahead of them towards the predatory outline of the Impala, parked across the street from Sam's apartment. The sun is setting now, and the evening is chilly and dry— no clouds in a darkening azure sky.

Dean glances between Gabriel and Castiel. "Luggage might be a tight squeeze, though. You guys got bags packed?"

Gabriel hits a button on a set of car keys that were not in his hand a moment earlier, and the trunk on the nearest sedan pops open. Castiel is fairly sure it belongs to the women in 3B.

"Here they are," Gabriel says brightly, tossing a tightly-packed duffel bag at Castiel. It hits him in the chest and he staggers a bit under the weight; it would have flattened a normal man, he thinks. Father only knows what's inside.

"Okay. Rule one of riding in my baby," Dean starts, holding up a finger.

"Dean, I remember," Castiel protests, but Dean shakes his head and stares down Gabriel, who now has a lollipop in his mouth and is running an appraising eye along the Impala's gleaming black chassis.

"Rule one," Dean repeats. "Driver picks the music—"

Gabriel's expression is angelic, in a word, and that's never boded well for anyone. Predictably, when they're finally allowed to pile into the car, Dean's beloved tapes have mysteriously turned to showtunes and power ballads from the eighties.

"What the— who the hell?" Dean says, looking at the speakers like they've turned to snakes.

Cher answers, "_I can feel something inside me sayin', I really don't think you're strong enough, no!"_

"_What_," Sam gasps around his laughter.

"_Gabriel,_" Castiel mutters, nudging his shoulder. Gabriel blinks guilelessly back.

After a frantic search yields only more ballads and a subpar production of South Pacific, Dean actually throws a cassette out the window while Sam rolls on the passenger seat in stitches, tears streaming down his face as he laughs to the point of breathlessness.

"Gotta say, Dean, I would not have pegged you for a Cher fan," Gabriel says, under the sound of Dean starting the engine. "Marilyn, sure. Dolly Parton, absolutely."

"Shut your fucking mouth," Dean snarls, throwing the car into gear. "And put on your goddamn seatbelts, all of you. Let's get this show on the road."


	2. Chapter 2

There are approximately twenty-four hours of travel time between Palo Alto and Sioux Falls. Castiel remembers this, and the long winding route across the mountains, from reading over Sam's shoulder as he'd purchased the bus tickets that now will go unprinted and unused. A day is such a short thing, he thinks. Infinitesimal. Surely it will pass by quickly enough.

"You know, I never really liked Christmas," Gabriel muses from the back seat, less an hour in.

"You _what_?" Dean asks, eyes belligerent in the rear-view mirror, and hope dies a swift death in Castiel's chest.

Gabriel leans forward a little to make sure he's heard, arms rest on the seatback between Sam and Dean. "Christ was born in early spring, and most of these traditions you cling so tightly to were passé in the _fifties_. And Saint Nick has always annoyed the hell out of me. Never trust anyone that jolly all the damn time, and every year, bam! Naughty list. Guy never gives me a break."

"Pretty sure that thing you did with the ferrets was an automatic qualifier for a couple decades," Sam offers. "That, and the fact that you're an asshole. To everyone."

Gabriel levels a finger at him. "Then you're definitely in the running, Samsquatch."

"Don't _call_ me that," Sam says, in the tones of a long-running argument.

Dean meets Castiel's eyes in the mirror with a raised eyebrow. Castiel shrugs and tries to look as apologetic as he can.

* * *

"Hold up," Dean says, "just hold the fuck up. The Christian Bale movies are amazing. Instant classics."

"Please," Gabriel sneers, "They're shiny, masturbatory pieces of crap. Michael Keaton is the _only_ Batman."

"The Dark Knight grossed over a billion dollars worldwide!" Dean protests.

"And the Dark Knight Rises was a bloated, ridiculously pompous shit of a film that should have never made it out of the editing room."

"I swear to God—"

Castiel, who has kept hours almost as long as Sam's the last few days, is growing increasingly irritated with Gabriel's sprawling limbs and slow encroachment on Castiel's side of the seat as he vehemently disagrees with Dean about every aspect of pop culture in the last two decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, it's Sam who finally snaps, "Would you two just shut the fuck up? It's eleven at night, I'm running on about two hours of cat naps in the last forty-eight, and I need some freaking _sleep_."

"It's actually twelve," Gabriel offers.

"We passed into the Rocky Mountain time zone a few miles back," Dean adds.

"I will murder you both with the road atlas," Sam says flatly.

They switch seats at a rest stop six interminable hours into the drive, low brick building unsettlingly identical every other rest stop Castiel has seen as they cruised past. The dim orange glow of industrial lighting is easy on his tired eyes as he watches Sam shuffle around to the back driver's side door and climb in, while Gabriel simply crawls over the bucket seat in a move that has Dean interrupting their ongoing argument long enough to snap, "Hey, rule four!"

"At no point have my shoes so much as brushed your precious leather seats," Gabriel says. "Much like Christopher Nolan never has and never will touch an Oscar."

Dean makes a low, angry noise and throws the car into sharp reverse. "Just put your goddamn feet on the floor, okay? Thank you!"

The backseat is dark and warm and Sam's shoulder is extremely comfortable when Castiel maneuvers in under his arm. Sam's feet end up in the opposite foot well, Castiel's on the seat (shoes off), and Sam mutters into his hair, "If they don't quiet down in the next thirty minutes, we bail and start hitchhiking. The code word is 'batshit'."

"Understood," Castiel yawns, "I think," and Sam snorts tiredly.

Although Castiel admits a mild interest in experimenting with the phenomenon of hitchhiking, it proves unnecessary. After a minute or two, the dispute seems to pitter out on its own, and it's blessedly silent for a time.

Eventually someone turns the radio on, and mellow brass swells through the car under a man singing, "_And so I'm offering this simple phrase, to kids from one to ninety-two—"_

Castiel slips in and out of consciousness, the radio and Sam's breathing and the sound of the tires on the road blending into a seamless wall of white noise.

At some point, he becomes aware that the car has stopped moving. Sam doesn't stir, though, and no one speaks, so Castiel lets himself drift off into a deeper sleep.

* * *

He's awakened by an extremely rude ray of sunlight and a sudden cold breeze, Sam trying to extract himself from under Castiel without jostling him as he eases out the open car door. Castiel makes a noise of protest, shielding his eyes, and Sam's face swims into view as Castiel blinks.

"Morning," Sam says softly. "You can go back to sleep."

"... I have to urinate," Castiel says, still squinting up at him.

"Then get the fuck out of my car," Dean grumps from somewhere outside the vehicle. "Crap, my _neck._ I'm too old to be sleeping in here, Sam."

"I think we both passed that point somewhere around age twelve," Sam says dryly, and helps Castiel climb out of the back seat after him.

Dean stands a little ways away from the car, hand shading his eyes from the merciless glare of the dawn sun. The Impala is parked on a ridge overlooking the sear gold plains at the base of the mountains, and Sam steps up to the edge to join him.

"Utah?" he asks, nodding at the terrain.

"Mostly Wyoming, I think," Dean says, stretching up with an arm over his head. "_Ngh. _Think I see a diner down there. They fucking better be open."

Gabriel appears to be still sound asleep, strangely enough, mouth slightly open and a thin stream of drool exiting the side. He snorts awake when Dean turns the key and the engine revs to life, eyes wide and surprised before he settles back to glower at all of them.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty," Dean says with a smirk. "You going to clean up that puddle?"

"You breed with the mouth of a goat, pastor," Gabriel growls in Enochian, and Castiel lets out a shocked huff of laughter.

"Were you actually _sleeping_?" Castiel asks him in the same language. "You?"

"You breed with the brother of a goat-fucker," Gabriel groans, slumping down in his seat.

"I don't know what the shit that is," Dean says, pointing at them, "but either share with the class or shut up. You're hurting my ears."

"Cas, you didn't tell me you spoke another language," Sam says, leaning over. "I didn't recognize it; is it Slavic? Is it your native—?"

"Shut up, Sam," Dean and Gabriel say in concert, and glare at each other.

The diner Dean spotted from above is just opening as they pull into the parking lot, and the sixty-year-old waitress looks annoyed at having her smoke break interrupted. Castiel uses the men's room, and stops Gabriel from ordering everything on the menu, but only just. The arrival of a heaping plate of bacon touches off a battle between Dean and Gabriel for the most pieces, and Sam watches the two of them with judgmental eyes over a plate of fruit pieces and plain Belgian waffles.

Gabriel, eventually victorious with the majority of eight crunchy slices wedged in his mouth, smiles big and broad and says, "Meat is murder, right, Samwise? Tasty, tasty murder."

Sam looks ill. Castiel feels vaguely guilty, but it doesn't stop him from eating what little bacon he'd managed to steal in the fray, or from slipping Dean some to stop the sulky looks he aims at Gabriel's pieces.

As the meal winds down, Sam slaps the credit card Dean offers the waitress out of his hand and holds out his own.

"Well, fine," Dean says, leaning back with his fifth mug of coffee. "Your treat, then."

"Better me than Mr. 'Roy G. Biv'," Sam says, reading off the card as he flicks it back at him. It nearly lands in the mug. "Roy G. Biv? Really, Dean?"

Dean shrugs as he slips it back in his pocket. "Hey, I could be a Roy."

Gabriel starts in on a second steaming stack of pancakes that hadn't been sitting on the table two seconds previously. Sam and Dean don't appear to notice, but Castiel reaches through the aether with a wing and smacks Gabriel's smallest arm. In the mundane realm, Gabriel sticks his tongue out.

* * *

They stop at a gas station sometime in the afternoon, and Dean and Gabriel climb out of the car together to rustle up some sandwiches from the attached Arby's. They've stopped arguing, per se, but this groove of agreement they've fallen into is almost worst.

"No, you have to see the director's cut," Gabriel maintains, "there's a whole scene they took out of the original where the husband comes back, and they DP her on the inflatable raft."

"You're disgusting," Sam says, twisting open the gas cap. "Both of you."

"_Casa Erotica: Poolhouse Pootang_ is a cinematographic masterpiece," Gabriel says loftily, and Dean nods in agreement. "Now, the sequel with the swim coach—"

The two of them walk through the doors still talking, and presumably continue once inside the building. Castiel is just glad they've gone.

Sam stays next to the Impala, leaning a hip on the frame as the gas pumps sluggishly into the car's tank. Castiel stands next to him in a kind of solidarity, even though it's markedly colder now than it had been in California and the coat Gabriel had snapped into existence for him isn't nearly thick enough.

They'd started seeing snow almost as soon as they'd crossed the mountains, but so far it's been patchy and sparse, more grey than white with road salt and mud. That might not be the case for much longer, if the clouds amassing on the western horizon are any indication. Castiel watches them build, wishing he still had the power to read the earth as effortlessly as he once did.

When the tank is full and the gas paid for, he and Sam climb in the car and drive up to an empty spot in front of the Arby's and park. Through the glass, Castiel can see Gabriel sitting on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth and gesturing lewdly as he and Dean speak animatedly. The girl behind the counter looks both scandalized and intrigued.

"What do you want to bet they're still talking about porn," Sam mutters. "I used to think you and Dean meeting would be a disaster, but Dean and _Gabriel_— ugh."

"Really?" Castiel says, playing with the large container of salt he's found in the glove box. Dean must keep it for icy roads. "A disaster?"

"...it honestly turned out much better than I thought it would," Sam says with a slow smile, and Castiel feels a little warmer despite the weather.

Dean ducks out of the glass doors with a large greasy bag and a tray of jumbo-sized drinks. Gabriel, coming out behind him, is carrying what looks like half the gas station candy counter, long ropes of licorice and brightly-colored bags in his hands, several different chocolate bars wedged into his back pockets.

Dean— very lightly— kicks the driver's side door where Sam is. "Out of my seat, bitch."

"You've been driving for fifteen hours," Sam counters. "Get in the back, jerk."

"Shotgun," Castiel says immediately, as Dean's angry scowl shifts to him.

"Hey, you used it right," Sam says, surprised, and Castiel holds up his hand expectantly. Sam laughs and gives him the high-five.

Dean wastes a few more seconds glaring before he maneuvers himself into the back seat with ill grace, casting dark looks at the back of Sam's head as he settles in. "Rule eight, people," he warns as he hands out the food. Castiel balances his and Sam's drinks very carefully in his lap while Sam starts the car and backs out into the parking lot, then forward onto the entrance ramp to the highway.

"Okay, fry me," Sam says as they merge into traffic, holding out a hand.

Gabriel helpfully adds, "He means hand him the fries, Cassie," when Castiel tries and fails to parse this request.

Castiel digs hungrily into his fried chicken strips while Sam methodically demolishes a carton of curly fries, and Dean and Gabriel polish off two sandwiches apiece and start discussing burger toppings, which leads to ice cream toppings, which leads (perhaps inevitably) to an examination of the benefits and drawbacks of using various kinds of foodstuffs in sexual exploits. Castiel listens with attention; having no practical experience of his own in this area, he takes every opportunity to learn more about human habits of copulation. Just in case, he thinks, with a furtive glance at Sam's face.

"Christ," Sam mutters. "Does everything circle back to porn with you two?"

"… well, yes," Gabriel says.

"Mostly," Dean agrees.

Sam rolls his eyes and turns the radio on again. A man croons, "_I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play..."_

After a while, Dean says, "Jesus, Gabriel, can't you keep your feet to yourself?"

Castiel is still looking at Sam, and sees his lips shape words, _Oh, goddamn it._

He absolutely concurs.

* * *

The sun goes down. The road rolls on. The radio stations fade in and out, and Dean and Gabriel's newest topic of conversation— the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants to be found in middle America— slows, quiets, and finally stops altogether. When Castiel looks back, they're both asleep, Dean slumped against the door, Gabriel with his knees propped on the seat and his chin on his chest.

Sam's been driving for hours now, leaning back in the seat with his long arms and longer legs barely moving as they streak across South Dakota. Castiel himself descends into an almost trance-like state, head resting on the back of the seat with his face turned towards Sam.

At one point, Sam reaches for his drink and glances over at Castiel, and when he sees him looking he smiles.

"Doing okay?"

Castiel thinks on this.

"I am very happy," he answers.

"Yeah?" Sam asks, smile widening. "Glad to hear it."

They're quiet for another few minutes before Sam speaks again, soft in the dark interior of the car.

"I think… I hope you're going to like it. At Bobby's, I mean. We're getting in early enough that we should be able to help with a lot of the prep work— the decorations and stuff— and that's one of the best parts of the whole thing."

"I'm looking forward to it." Castiel says. He is, he finds, very much looking forward to 'home'.

"_I'll be home for Christmas,"_ sighs the radio, as if in response. _"You can plan on me..."_

A few small flakes strike the windshield and lodge under the wipers. Castiel gazes past Sam out the window, where, almost imperceptibly, it begins to snow.

* * *

They arrive at the house in the bitterly cold hours before dawn, Gabriel and Dean completely dead to the world until Castiel shakes them bodily awake. The sun is a thin rime of gray light on the horizon, but the moon is high, shining through the dense clouds that have followed them to the eastern edge of the state. The house stands a little apart from its neighbors, solid but dowdy, worn around the edges— like something much used but well-loved.

"And here we are," Sam says, looking over the top of the Impala's roof at the house. "Bobby's place."

"Is that a junkyard?" Gabriel asks incredulously, squinting into the darkness.

"Couple acres of broken-down cars, rusty metal scrap and old tires," Dean says, stretching with his hands up and fingers laced over his head. "_Mmmm._ Love this place."

Sam and Dean go to the trunk to unload the bags, and Gabriel wanders over to the front gate, pausing there for a moment before lifting a hand. He flicks his finger against something in the air that chimes when struck. The house is warded.

"Not bad," he says in aside to Castiel. "Not enough to keep out anything really determined, but color me impressed."

"_Holy—_ hey!" Dean calls from the car. "Whoever packed the bag of bowling balls and shit, I'm not carrying it!"

Gabriel makes an imperious shooing motion and Castiel sighs, turning back to the Impala to collect their luggage.

The wards are a pleasant breeze against his cheeks as he crosses the fence, but Gabriel's assessment is correct: they're hardly strong enough to do more than tug at his pinions, a sensation like sticky cobwebs that fades the moment he crosses them. Perhaps it would be different if he were one of Crowley's cohort, but as it is, he hardly would have noticed them.

The four of them climb the broad steps and Dean stands on tiptoe to feel for something along the top of the front door's lintel. Sam, flat-footed, reaches up and snags a key, grinning at his brother when Dean glares and snatches it from his hand.

Inside, the house is dark and silent, the faint tick-tick of a hidden clock the only noise. In the dim light of the entryway, Sam presses a finger to his lips and points, and the four of them step softly through cramped, crowded rooms to a staircase that rises up into a dark void.

"The fourth step creaks," Dean whispers, and Castiel dutifully counts as he follows him up, Sam coming behind him, Gabriel bringing up the rear.

The void proves to be a narrow hallway, and at the landing Dean holds out a hand to stop them and silently opens the first door to the right, peering in for a moment before closing it again. "Ellen. Jo too," he says to Sam, who nods and follows him to the next door.

This strange ritual occurs up and down the hall— "Bobby," "Rufus", and finally, "Bingo," a final, empty room on their left. Dean leaves that door cracked.

"Okay, guys," he says. "Looks like we've got a pretty full house. There're two twins left in here, so Gabe, Cas, why don't you take those. Bobby has some mattresses and cots in the attic, so if you need us—" Dean points to a door at the far end of the hall. "We're right upstairs. Get some sleep, 'kay? We'll save the hi-how-are-yous for the morning."

He steps away, and Gabriel takes the opportunity to slip through the door to the proffered room. Sam hesitates, a vague shadow looming over Castiel in the darkness.

"So," he says quietly. "See you at breakfast, then?"

"Yes. Goodnight, Sam," Castiel says, and leans into it when Sam's finger's catch at his arm, feel their way to his shoulder for a brief squeeze.

"'Night, Cas."

Sam's hand drops, and he turns to follow Dean. Castiel's eyes lose his outline almost immediately in the dense darkness, but he stands in the hallway until he hears the attic door close.

In the guest room, Gabriel has turned on a lamp and is surveying the small, spare space with a thoroughly unimpressed expression.

"Well this is… cozy. Say the word and I fly us to the nearest five-star," he says, fingers poised to snap.

Castiel assesses the room, the small potted plant on the windowsill and the blue-painted dresser in the corner. The walls are bare, the bed linens a faded floral pattern, and the second mattress, when Castiel sets his bag down and sits, creaks loudly. It has the consistency of potatoes in a sack.

"I think it's nice," he says.

"_Nice,_" Gabriel says dubiously. "That's one word for it."

"You may leave if you wish to," Castiel says solicitously. He knows how seriously Gabriel takes his creature comforts.

Gabriel slants him a look that's part annoyance and part amusement. "Castiel, leaving now would kind of defeat the purpose, don't you think?"

"Purpose?" Castiel asks.

Gabriel flops down onto his bed, and it doesn't squeal or groan like Castiel's did. In fact, the mattress looks markedly thicker than it did a moment ago, and the sheets are transforming as he watches. "I'm staying," Gabriel says, "and we're going to have a fun family Christmas." His smile is a wry twist of lips. "All the trimmings. No substitutions. Goose. Tree._ Snow_."

Something about the way he says the last word has Castiel glancing towards the window in concern. He doesn't think he's imagining the sudden increase in snowflakes. "Gabriel, interfering with natural precipitation patterns can have devastating consequences on crop yields and the local watershed."

"Brother-mine, I've heard every flavor and genre of "White Christmas" ever _made _over the past two days," Gabriel says with a yawn, stretching back on his suddenly cloudlike pillows. "We're having a Belial-bedamned white Christmas if it sinks the whole state."

* * *

Castiel thinks he slips into someone else's dreams that night, but he can't be sure. Perhaps they're his own. His unconscious mind does that, now. Dreams.

Sam and Dean, facing each other in Sam's tiny studio. Castiel sits on the couch, watching. It's the night he first met Dean.

_"I was checking up on you, okay?" Dean says gruffly. "We do that, you know."_

_"Really," Sam says, flat and hard. _

_Dean sets his jaw, glances at Castiel and away. "Yeah. More than you probably realize."_

Fast forward. The day plays out in a series of images: Dean, Sam and Castiel. The Impala. Pie. Castiel walks impatiently through the memories, because there's really only one he wants to see, wants to understand.

And it's this moment, here. In the dream, Sam stares at him, arms immersed in a tub full of soapy dishes. Castiel breathes in, and he can still feel the lingering sensation of lips pressed to his own. _"Sam?"_

In reality, Sam had turned back to the dishes, hiding his expression. He'd suggested in a strained voice that Castiel go back to sleep. It was late. He was probably tired.

In the dream, Sam's eyes are heavy-lidded, and he sighs _"Cas,"_ in reply, and lifts his head, leaning into Castiel's space. They kiss, again, and it's just as perfect as the first time. The smell of dish soap and the humid heat of the room feel real, real as Sam's wet hands where they slide around Castiel's waist to draw him closer and—

"Please have your sad vanilla fantasies somewhere where I can't see them," Gabriel groans from the next bed. "Or spice it up a little, at least."

Castiel, tangled in the blankets and blinking groggily at the water-stained ceiling, thoughtlessly asks, "Spice it up?"

A full-sensory image of himself poised over Sam, the man naked and tied to a bed with leather straps and some kind of hard rubber ball in his mouth sears itself into his mind, and Castiel yelps, flailing his way out of the sheets to glare fiercely at Gabriel.

"Why would anyone want that? Why was he crying?" he says, highly alarmed. "What was I doing with my fingers?"

"Oh, in time, dear Castiel," Gabriel says smugly, turning over. "In time."

Castiel is now more thoroughly awake than he has been at any point in the last week, and for a moment he weighs the satisfaction it would give him to throw a pillow at Gabriel versus the inevitable and punishing retaliation.

"Any time you want to go, little bro," Gabriel says sleepily, and a second later a thin snore issues from underneath the comforter.

"Your wings are as the dodo's," Castiel mutters in Enochian, and swings his feet to the floor.

It's still fairly early, the sun dim and low in a gunmetal-grey sky. When Castiel pulls the curtain back, fat white flakes are drifting down in slow, heavy sheets, blanketing the ground. There are at least two more feet of snow then there'd been the previous evening.

"Is this going to fall all day?" Castiel wonders aloud, turning to dig through his bag until Gabriel gives an impatient snort and a pair of slippers appear. "Thank you."

Gabriel grumbles something and Castiel is suddenly in the hallway, facing an open bathroom door with a pouch full of hygiene products in his hands. Castiel turns to give their door a glower, but slouches in to use the facilities all the same.

When he comes out, he notices for the first time a murmur of conversation from downstairs, and the comfortable smell of things cooking. He remembers Sam's promised breakfast, and makes his way carefully down the stairs, which are no less narrow and rickety for the daylight streaming in through high windows.

The moment he steps into the kitchen, though, the conversation stops, and belatedly he sees that all the faces are strange. He pauses in the doorway, unsure.

"Well, hello there," a woman says finally, hair in a messy ponytail and her brown eyes wary. She's sitting at the kitchen table, holding a mug in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. Behind her, a man stands at the stove, paused in the motion of flipping an egg with a spatula. There's a second man sitting at the table, chewing slowly as he takes in Castiel's fuzzy purple slippers, baggy pajama bottoms and plain tee.

"Uh, hello," Castiel says awkwardly, folding his hands together. "I—"

The front door bangs open and Castiel turns towards the sound, just in time to see a snow-caked boot arc across the foyer and hit the far wall. "I got your freaking newspapers!" someone calls loudly, and another boot follows. "All the way down in the _street_, I'm probably going to lose some toes, I hope you're freaking happ— oh."

The 'oh' is for Castiel, who has interrupted a girl's headlong charge into the kitchen, two newspapers in plastic bags brandished in front of her like swords. Trotting beside her is a large, old dog, who gives Castiel a disinterested sniff before continuing on to the table.

"Heeey," the girl says to him, eyes lighting up. "Hi! What's your name?"

"I am Castiel," he says, grateful that she at least seems friendly. It gives him the courage to turn to the room at large and say, "I apologize, we came in very late last night and didn't want to wake—"

"That's fine, it's fine," the girl says, grabbing his elbow and steering him further into the kitchen. "Happens all the time. I'm Jo, by the way. That's my mom, that's Bobby," she points to the man at the stove, "and the guy giving you the stinkeye is Rufus."

"Nothing against you personally, you understand," Rufus says, picking up his fork. "We just usually have met a couple times before folks feel comfortable dropping in."

Beside him, Jo gives a loud huff. "He came in with John and Dean, _duh_."

"John's here?" Bobby asks, taking the pan off the stove and bringing it to the table.

"Unless you know anyone else who drives a black '67 Impala," she says. "Which is practically buried, by the way. I hope we have enough food to make it through until spring."

"Just you three, then?" Ellen asks Castiel, setting her mug aside. "Let me start another pot."

"There's no 'John' that I know of," Castiel says carefully. "It's Dean and I, and Sam, and my brother—"

"Wait. Sam? Sam's here?" Jo says, eyes wide.

"Uh, yes," Castiel answers.

Ellen points at the ceiling, brows rising to her hairline. "Here, as in upstairs?"

"… yes? They're in the attic—"

Jo lets out a full-bodied shriek and springs from her seat, running full-tilt out of the room and, from the sound of her pounding footsteps and the sudden creak from the fourth step, all the way upstairs.

"Hooboy," Ellen sighs.

From somewhere above them, there's a startled yell and a few dull thuds, followed by a muffled, "_What the fuck—" _that sounds like Dean, and a long, drawn out squeal of glee.

"So," Rufus says, eyeing Castiel over a forkful of potato hash. "You a hunter, then?"

"I don't believe in killing for sport," Castiel says uncertainly. "For sustenance, certainly."

Rufus, Bobby and Ellen share a speaking look that Castiel doesn't understand, but the moment is broken by Jo's re-entry into the kitchen towing a tousle-haired Sam by the wrist. Dean follows, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and scowling deeply when he sees Castiel.

"This is your fault, isn't it," he growls.

"My apologies," Castiel says meekly.

"Whatever," he grumbles, dropping his hands. "Just gimme some damn coffee."

Jo pushes a bemused-looking Sam towards the table, where Bobby is building a plate of scrambled eggs and thick pink sausages, setting it in front of an empty chair with a flourish. Sam winces when he sees it.

"What, no hug for an old lady?" Ellen asks with a grin as he moves to sit, and before he can stoop down she stands up to give him one. "Jesus, kid, you got big."

"That was the first thing I told him," Jo says, scooting onto the bench seat that lines half the table. "He's enormous!"

"Hair's still dumb," Ellen says, sweeping his bangs to the side.

"Thanks guys, really," Sam says with a roll of his eyes, pulling the chair out.

"No one said you could sit down yet, boy," Bobby says gruffly, and motions Sam over for a hug of his own.

"God, could it get any more Lifetime in here," Dean mumbles into his coffee.

"You know what they say about the prodigal son," Rufus says mildly.

"Dean, honey, if you wanted one too all you had to do was say," Ellen says, opening her arms.

Dean makes a face but he squeezes her tightly enough to lift her off of her feet with a surprised laugh, and then all seven of them are crowding in around the table, banging elbows and knocking knees. Dean circles back to the counter and returns to the table with a piping-hot mug for Sam, an extra for Castiel. Castiel takes it gratefully, and squeezes in on the edge of the bench next to Sam. The crowding is made all the worse when the old dog heaves itself to its feet and determinedly maneuvers through the forest of legs under the table, it's haunches ending up squarely on Castiel's feet. Jo presses in close to Castiel's side as she reaches over him to snag an orange from the bowl on the table, and stays there. It's a strangely comfortable feeling, this closeness.

"So, Castiel, tell us all about yourself," she says brightly.

"Me," Castiel says, looking between her face and Sam's. There's a panicked moment where the only thing he can think of is, _it was given to me to watch over the shepherds of Chaldea, and when I had proven myself, to govern the thirteenth hour of the fifth day. _"I. I teach Latin?"

"He's an aide for a few of the introductory language classes at Stanford," Sam explains around a long slurp of coffee, and Castiel is grateful for it.

"Yes. And Sam and I, we cohabi—"

"He's my roommate," Sam says over him. "We met at the Stanford library, and he kind of moved in with me over the course of a year. Bobby, you should show him some of your books, he's a huge history buff."

"That's right, _Stanford_. Tell us more about school, Sam," Ellen jumps in. "The last we heard you wanted to be a lawyer. Is that what you've been doing this whole time?"

The pressure to speak successfully removed from him, Castiel repays Sam by stealing his sausage, link by link. When he realizes what he's doing, Sam gives him a small, grateful smile and nudges the plate closer.


	3. Chapter 3

"—and _then_ we're gonna go tobogganing," Jo interjects with relish. "Castiel, are you getting all this?"

"What— Cas, no," Sam says, shaking his head as he devotes both hands to petting the dog— who's named Rumsfeld, Castiel has learned. "You don't have to write that down."

"But I want to," Castiel murmurs; how else will he remember? He prints TABAGAN – FORM OF TRANSPORT? very carefully in the notebook Bobby had lent him. Human methods of writing are so unwieldy.

Ellen, reading over his shoulder, taps the first syllable with a finger. "That's an 'O'. Pretty sure the next one's an 'O', too. And two 'G's. There you go," as Castiel dutifully makes the corrections. "And a toboggan is a type of sled."

"Ah," Castiel says, brightening. Christmas music is full of sleds. "How many horses will it have?"

Even Rufus chuckles at that, and Castiel looks around at them. "What?"

"Different kind of sled," Jo explains.

"Man, I don't want to drag the toboggan out," Dean says, face still buried in his mug. "That thing weighs fifty pounds if it weigh an ounce, and it's hanging up on the wall in the garage, isn't it?"

"Same place it always is," Bobby says. "I don't know why you're pitching a fit, you're twice as big as you were the last time that thing came down."

The list under Castiel's pen is as follows:

**1. TREE – TODAY (ORNAMENTS IN GARAGE? LOOK IN ATTIC TOO) WHEN THE SNOW STOPS – GROCERIES FOR DINNER (PLAN FOR TEN TWELVE)**

**2. DEAN'S PIE IS IMPORTANT**

"Not as important as my potatoes," Ellen had said, and Castiel had dutifully added them to the list.

**3. & ELLEN'S POTATO^eS ARE AS WELL**

**4. BINGO ? - IS A GAME PLAYED WITH CARDS BUT IS NOT A CARD GAME HELP WRAP PRESENTS**

**BOBBY MAINTAINS THERE ARE NO PRESENTS**

**DEAN SAYS THERE ARE, HE HIDES THEM IN THE SAME PLACE EVERY YEAR AND DEAN CHECKED**

**DEAN IS GETTING COAL FOR CHRISTMAS**

"I am not, don't write that down," Dean had protested.

**DEAN IS ^not GETTING COAL FOR CHRISTMAS**

**5. TOMORROW MORNING - HUNTING TRIP ? TARA IS COMING - MAYBE ASH IS COMING - PROBABLY HELP RUFUS FINISH LIGHTS WASSAIL, WHICH HAS BOTH EGGS AND BEER**

**MAKE SURE THERE IS ENOUGH BEER LEFT OVER FOR PERSONS WHO DO NOT WISH TO PARTAKE OF WASSAIL**

"Pretty sure you can leave that one off," Sam had said dryly.

Dean had elbowed him in the side. "Hey, speak for yourself, freegan."

"Do you even know what that word means?"

"… somebody dumb. Who drinks shit like wassail."

And finally,

**6. TABAGAN – FORM OF TRANSPORT? NO. TOBOGGAN IS A SLED (NO HORSES)**

Castiel has just finished inscribing this last item when a phone rings somewhere inside the house, and Bobby climbs to his feet.

"Duty calls, folks."

"Mmhm," Rufus says vaguely, still looking at Castiel's list. "Definitely keep the beer on there. Add some bourbon, too."

The ringing phone stops, and Bobby voice drifts in from the next room. "Special Agent Mathers. Yes. Yeah."

Castiel is engrossed in spelling 'bourbon' when he hears the man say, "Mmhm. Just let me— hey, you! Get out of that!"

Somehow, Castiel is not surprised to look up and see Gabriel allowing himself to be pushed into the room, still holding an ancient-looking book and a brass spyglass.

"Morning, everyone," he says brightly.

"Give me those," Bobby says irritably, pulling the book and spyglass away. "If you're planning on enjoying my hospitality, you respect the house rules, we clear? And the rules say don't touch what ain't yours!"

"Oh, _absolutely_," Gabriel says, as if the idea had never crossed his mind. "My humblest apologies."

"And this is Gabriel, everyone," Sam says, sighing. "He's Cas' brother, and he… works with me at my part-time job."

"I'm a freelance acquisition specialist," Gabriel says with a grin. "You've got some very interesting specimens in your library, Bobby Singer."

Bobby points a final warning finger at him and shuffles back to the library with his things. Jo says, "Wow, his brother? Small world!"

Castiel gives Gabriel a pointed stare and he shrugs, unrepentant. "Sure it is. About that list you've got going—"

Castiel instinctively holds it away from him.

"Just a few suggestions," Gabriel wheedles. "Tiny things, really—"

Gabriel's additions are for the most part voted (shouted) down, but the liquor list gets markedly longer and, in a concentrated war of attrition, he manages to convince Bobby to add all sorts of exotic things to the menu for the next few days.

"And where are we supposed to get star anise and cardamom in this town, huh?" the man asks irritably, frowning at their grocery list. "Quail's easy enough, got plenty of them out back, and venison in the freezer downstairs. But what in the seven hells is mascarpone?"

"A cheese. And I'm sure someone will have what we need," Gabriel demurs, which Castiel knows to mean that some hapless grocer in town will find himself ringing up things like Russian sturgeon and zebra meat in short order.

Half an hour later, when songbird tongues (neatly labeled and priced by the pound) roll past on the grocery conveyer belt, Castiel pretends not to notice and hopes that Ellen won't examine her cart too closely.

"Um," the cashier says, reading the label.

"It's from the seasonal section," Gabriel says breezily.

"Right," the young man says dubiously, and scans it in.

Dean and Rufus are waiting outside in the truck, Dean sitting slumped and sulky in the passenger's seat. No one had offered to help him dig the Impala out of the ten-foot drift that had built up on the lee side of the house in the night, and he's still being aggressively resentful about it.

He turns to them as soon as they open the doors. "Did you get my—?"

Gabriel drops two bulging paper bags onto his lap, and Dean makes increasingly excited noises as he shifts through their contents while the rest of them load the cab.

"Where the hell did you get grasshopper pie at this time of the year? And Derby pie? Oh, man, I am going to eat _all _of this one—"

"Fatass," Sam grunts, hefting another heavy bag into the back seat.

"At least I've got something to keep my jeans up, Ichabod," Dean says, happily nose-deep in pies. "Yours is practically concave."

"Excuse you, my ass is_ perfect_," Sam says, climbing in.

"Yes it is," Jo says appreciatively, admiring the view.

"I'm sure you'll both get dates to the dance, girls," Ellen says, tapping her foot impatiently. "Now can we all just get in the damn truck?"

They can, as it turns out— but not comfortably, and certainly not with any kind of dignity. They'd been packed in like sardines to start with, and that leaves very few options for transporting both groceries and people back to the house in one trip.

"Why am I stuck with this heavy bastard?" Dean complains, Gabriel seated squarely across his legs with the pies in his arms, looking inordinately pleased with the situation.

"Because the only lap my daughter is sitting on is _mine_, Dean Winchester," Ellen says coolly, pulling her seatbelt around the both of them. Jo shrugs philosophically.

"Am I heavy?" Castiel asks Sam, craning his head back to see his face.

"Only a lot," Sam says with a grimace, shifting under him. "And have I mentioned how bony your butt is?"

"Several times, yes," Castiel notes sourly.

Groceries successfully wedged into every other available space— on the seats, on the floor, in their hands, under their feet— Rufus backs the truck out of the parking lot and onto the barely-plowed country highway.

"Goddamn it, Gabe, will you _stop wiggling_?"

It's a new and interesting sensation, to feel as well as hear Sam's frustrated groan.

* * *

There's plenty more work to be done around the house, once the many, many loads of groceries have made their way in.

"I'll be in the kitchen," Gabriel announces, the second Bobby and Rufus mention anything like manual labor.

Rufus harrumphs under his breath. "Sure. Knock yourself out. Dean—"

"Dean's dicing onions," Gabriel says, and pulls Dean after him, ignoring his protesting, "Wait, what? Why me?"

Rufus eyes Sam and Castiel. "Any prior appointments on your part, boys?" he drawls.

"Not that I know of," Sam says.

"Can I help hang the lights?" Castiel asks eagerly.

"_Don't let Castiel on the roof, he'll break something,"_ Gabriel calls from the hallway. _"Probably his neck."_

"I won't," Castiel promises. "I have very good balance."

"Uh huh," Bobby says doubtfully. "Sam, why don't you take Jo and Cas up to the loft, see what decorations are there from last year? I think the old men can handle a few strings of twinklers."

"I'll alert the fire department," Ellen says dryly. "And someone needs to supervise that kitchen. No offense, Castiel, but give him half a chance and that brother of yours would probably sling cactus hash and sheep's eyeballs for dinner. Don't think I didn't see him put that octopus in the cart."

Jo makes a disgusted face. Sam mouths, _Octopus?_

Castiel nods. "Yes, that is probably wise."

* * *

The loft is dark and chilly, occupying the spare bit of space under the detached garage's peaked roof. They take a ladder from the side of the house and run it up to a counterweighted door in the ceiling, Sam climbing up and thumping at it until it swings up and away.

Above, light shines in from high windows and the ends of roofing nails protrude through the plywood like clusters of iron stars. Sam keeps a hunched posture as he passes box after box after box to Castiel (standing on a middle rung) who passes them to Jo (standing at the bottom), who has amassed a pile taller than she is by the time Sam crouches down and announces, "Think that's all of them."

Jo eyes them thoughtfully. "I was going to say something but— you know Bobby usually just grabs one or two and throws whatever's in there on the tree?"

"Oh." Sam looks at the pile, then back into the loft. "I suppose we could put some back."

"No," Jo says slowly, a manic gleam dawning in her eyes. "Wait. He's got all these boxes labeled Christmas and he never puts any of it up? That's just stupid. We should surprise them!"

"Well, _all_ of them seems a little much—" Sam starts.

"Come on, it'll be fun! You want to, don't you, Cas?" Jo says excitedly.

"Yes, very much," Castiel says, because happiness has seeped out and stained the humble cardboard with indelible impressions of love and good cheer. It's making him smile just by proximity.

"Oh, fine," Sam says, smiling back at him. "Hold the ladder for me, someone?"

It takes several trips, but they fit all the boxes in through the kitchen, where Gabriel is attempting to teach Ellen how to shuck an oyster. Rumsfeld sits with his head in Ellen's lap, tail swinging ponderously from side to side.

"When did we get oysters?" Sam asks over the top of his box.

"_Why_ did we get oysters?" Jo adds, looking around the side of hers.

"Hell if I know," Dean grumps, wiping angrily at his reddened eyes. He has his sleeves rolled up and a bubblegum-pink apron tied around his waist, a small mountain of yellow onions and garlic on the counter beside him. "Hey, Sam, I'll trade you—"

"Not a chance," Sam says, sailing past him.

"Cas? Jo?" Dean says piteously. "Come on, I'm dying over— fuck!" he yelps, victim of a stinging swat from the dishtowel draped over Gabriel's shoulder.

"Chop now, talk later," their masterchef orders with narrowed eyes.

Castiel spares Dean a sympathetic look, but he's sure to get out while he still can.

There's a room near the front of the house, little used by the amount of dust on the fixtures and bookshelves. Bobby had told them the tree would go in here, once they cleared away some of the accumulated junk. Castiel finds Sam and Jo already sitting down, peering into the boxes they'd brought and lifting things to examine them in the dim sunlight.

"Ornaments will have to wait for the tree," Sam is saying. "Do you think Bobby will let us put up the garlands, though?"

"I don't see why not," Jo says cheerfully, pulling out a long rope of bristly fake pine. "There are wreaths and things in here too. I say we put them all up."

Sam glances at the tower of boxes, and back at her.

"Yep," Jo says firmly. "All of it."

"Event these?" Castiel asks, looking down at his handfuls of yellowed and torn paper snowflakes.

"... within reason," Jo allows.

* * *

At some point Rufus steps in, stares at the twirling plastic reindeer, frothing ribbon around every doorway and balustrade, and the snowbound porcelain village Castiel is painstakingly assembling on the dining room hutch, and steps right back out.

_"Bobby!" _Castiel hears him yell outside, muted by the glass of the windows. "_You'd better check on these dumbass kids of yours!"_

Fainter still is Bobby's reply. _"I would, if someone hadn't taken my goddamn ladder!"_

* * *

The sun is well past its zenith by the time everyone troops back into the house for lunch, and by then it's too late for anyone to stop them.

"It's like Christmas _puked _in here," Dean says admiringly, clapping a hand to Sam's shoulder. "Good job, guys."

Ellen bats the trailing end of a silver festoon away from her face. "I leave you alone for five minutes—"

"It's Christmas, Mom," Jo protests. "It's _festive_."

"It's like we flooded," Bobby says, sounding dazed. "Only instead of mud we got tinsel, and those little bells and bows and things."

"I'm guessing Sam did the ceiling decor," Gabriel drawls, tipping his head back. "That looks... seasonably garish."

"Well, I like it," Castiel says stoutly. He does. It's frenetic and cluttered, things taped to the molding and walls and crammed onto every shelf and table, but it looks… homey.

They make a slow circuit of the house to admire (despair) over each detail— the bows on the doorknobs, the fake poinsettias on the hearth and pinned above it, all the salvageable paper snowflakes taped carefully to the windows.

"What the— who got this all out?" Bobby says, stepping up to the miniature village. For a moment his expression seems almost angry.

"Oh, I— I apologize," Castiel says as Bobby leans over the display, looking down at the tiny figures frolicking in the streets. "They were in the boxes, and—"

"Nah, it's fine." One blunt fingertip brushes the porcelain heads of a courting couple: a grinning woman, a laughing man. "I just haven't seen 'em since... in a while. Surprised me," the man says.

"Oh," Castiel says.

"You did a good job."

"Thank you," Castiel says.

Into the palpable awkwardness that follows, Dean sets a hand on his stomach and exclaims, "I don't know about you, but my belly button is rubbing a hole in my backbone. To the kitchen!" and Sam and the others shuffle off and out of the room.

Bobby stays a moment longer, Castiel notices, tracing the smooth cheek of the smiling coquette.

* * *

In the kitchen, various jewel-toned foodstuffs are met with open curiosity (Jo) and chary stares (Rufus). The sandwich Gabriel eventually sets in front of Castiel is filled with something lumpy and purple, and he looks askance at his brother.

"It's portobellos in raspberry aioli and brie," Gabriel says, nudging it closer. "Try it, you'll like it."

"This isn't going to be like the mud pies, is it?" Castiel asks warily, and Gabriel has the gall to look offended.

Rufus, Bobby and Ellen claim post-meal naps as an old person's privilege, and after some good-natured ribbing the rest of them trudge outside to the edge of the woods, Dean motioning them all into a huddle at the tree line to lay out the plan.

"Okay, guys, this is serious business," Dean says, breath fogging in long plumes from his mouth. "We keep looking until we find the perfect one. No substitutes, no settling. It's gotta have a nice shape, and good branch spacing. Nothing too woolly, you can't put ornaments on that shit. No white pines either, those look fu— fricking dumb. And it has to look good from all sides, none of that 'turn the bad spot into the wall' crap."

"Okay, sergeant," Jo says with a mock salute, a broad-headed ax on her shoulder. "Lead the charge."

"Let me finish my damn cocoa," Dean says, slurping noisily at a travel mug. "It's cold as a witch's ti— uh, _bits_ out here."

"Are those as cold as a warlock's cock?" Jo asks dryly. "Because if so, I agree."

"Jesus, Jo," Dean says, but it's with a grin. "Your mom said she'd kill me if I corrupted you."

She makes a show of rolling her eyes. "Who exactly do you think taught me that one? Finish your baby drink, let's get tree-hunting."

The snow, still falling in fits and starts from the solid drape of pearl-gray clouds, has drifted to mid-hip in some places. There's one memorable moment when Dean trips and disappears into an unexpectedly deep hollow, powder resettling around his imprint like as if he was never there, and Sam and Castiel have to haul him out sputtering and cursing while Jo and Gabriel catcall. Gabriel is bundled up in so many layers of red wool and down he looks round, like a puffed-up cardinal, and when Castiel tells him so and gets knocked into a hollow of his own.

"Hey, Cas, can you see China?" Dean calls as Sam grabs one of Castiel's flailing hands. "I swear I damn near could."

"I don't— ah! I don't understand how that could be possible," Castiel coughs, waving his other hand until Sam catches it as well. There's a disorienting second where he feels like he's falling _up, _and then, even more dizzyingly, he's lying on top of Sam while Sam laughs, flat on his back in the deep snow.

"Oh my God, your _face,"_ he says, his hands in their borrowed mittens brushing roughly at the snow clinging to Castiel's hair and, presumably, his cheeks. Castiel ducks his head into the gap between Sam's coat and chin to get away from the ungentle rubbing and Sam yelps, "_Cold nose, cold nose!"_

Dean dumps an armful of snow on them both, and for a time their expedition is derailed in a flurry of snowballs and raucous laughter. Sam and Castiel face Dean and Jo in a pitched battle of skill and stealth, Gabriel sitting on a fallen cottonwood and watching with an air of bored indulgence until a stray projectile catches him full in the face.

Predictably, once engaged Gabriel plays with ferocious zeal. Also predictably, his final volley is enough to end the game for everyone.

An ominous shudder from above, and Castiel hears Dean shout, "_Oh, sweet Jesus Christ—!"_ as the entire forest turns white around them, all the trees shedding their burdens of ice and snow at once.

When Castiel finally claws his way out, Gabriel is perched on a stump above him, radiating smugness.

"That was extraordinarily nasty of you," Castiel tells him, which only makes him smile wider.

"That was fucking amazing!" Dean crows, kicking up through the mess. "How'd you do that?"

"How," Sam echoes dazedly, still mostly buried. "How even."

"I have ice in my long johns, you dicksmack!" Jo shrieks.

"Jo!"

"Fuck you, Dean, my mom is _not here!"_

Somewhat battered and exhausted, they resume their hunt for a Christmas tree— Jo wincing and walking strangely, Dean charging out ahead like a one-man scouting party. Sam's mittens are soaked, and he peels them off and stuffs them into a pocket as he trots after Dean, breathing into his cupped hands.

"C'mon, Cas!" he yells cheerfully, waving at him to follow. "I think the mighty tree hunter heard something this way!"

"_Fuck off!" _comes Dean's voice from ahead.

Castiel smiles and steps after him, but a hand settles on his arm. Gabriel's grip bites deep into the muscle at the crook of his elbow, and Castiel comes to a stop, surprised.

"Yes?"

"Wait," the archangel says simply.

Dean and Sam move out of sight over a small hill, Jo following shortly. They're still audible, though that too is growing fainter. The light is taking on a wan gold color now, long shadows slanting across the forest floor in blues and greys. Castiel waits, looking curiously at his brother.

Gabriel isn't looking at him. He's gazing at a patch of trees across a ravine to their right, with enough intensity that Castiel half-expects the bark to begin smoldering. Nothing moves but the shadows, sent rippling across the ground by an unfelt breeze that stirs the trees that cast them.

"Gabriel?" Castiel says, when he can barely hear the bay of Sam's laughter.

Gabriel's stare flickers briefly to him, and he lifts his hand from Castiel's arm, one finger raised. His eyes have come over a solid, feral gold.

Castiel closes his mouth, and gathers himself to move. The snow muffles their breath and steps, mutes the noise of the wind and the sounds of animals in the underbrush. He cannot see anything, anything at all, but he shifts into position at Gabriel's back, eyes sweeping the copses of trees and their thin, naked branches with growing unease.

"You. Depart from us," the archangel says, finally.

The words are quiet and softly spoken to Castiel's human ears. They peal like a clarion call across the higher planes and Castiel's wings flare in response, echoing their message.

"You are not welcome here," Gabriel whispers, and it thunders. His own wings in their soaring rows are slowly rising, and in the here-not-here he towers over Castiel's slighter frame, dwarfing him several times over.

For a moment, nothing happens. Castiel's sword falls into his waiting hand.

Then, so subtly Castiel almost doesn't sense it at all, the shadows… lighten.

Castiel spins in the snow, looking wildly around at the innocuous woods, because it lightens _everywhere, _above and below and in all directions_. _His heart beats hard in his frail-feeling chest. "What was it? _Where_ was it? I didn't see—"

"Calm yourself," his brother says, and Castiel shrinks back from the battering force of it, clapping his hands to his ears. "Oh, for— sorry, sorry, I'm dialing it down, see, itty-bitty inside voice. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Castiel mumbles. The searing reality of Gabriel's true form is folding in on itself, flames dying back to embers. "What did you see?"

"Almost nothing," Gabriel says, and he is abruptly just Gabriel once more: short, round, red. His eyes are brown, and thoughtful where they rest on Castiel. "That worries me."

"We are near the devil's gate," Castiel offers, and Gabriel's eyebrows rise.

"It's years too early for that," he says, but he looks around them with new wariness.

"We should catch up to the others," Castiel says with growing alarm. "Sam—"

"Yes," Gabriel says, still scanning the trees. "_Sam_."

* * *

But Sam, at least, seems perfectly fine.

"Hey, you made it!" he calls, waving them over. He's as bright and steady as he always is to Castiel's eyes, placid soul unaffected by whatever entity Gabriel has chased away. "Come look at this shitty tree Dean picked out!"

Dean brandishes the ax at him. "Can it, bozo. It's a beautiful tree. An amazing tree. The most perfect tree in the universe."

Castiel is honestly not sure what distinguishes it, a young middling-tall fir, from any other of a similar size and species. Sam likes another, and Jo a third, but all other opinions are summarily discarded by the man with the ax, and they proceed to chop down Dean's choice. It's surprisingly heavy, but between the four of them (Gabriel categorically declines to help), they manage to drag it back to the road, and from there to the house. The severed trunk drips sap down Sam's shoulder, which he curses when he notices.

The tree barely fits through the front door, and showers them all with needles when it finally springs free of the frame and into the foyer. Rumsfeld snuffles through the piles with great interest, tripping all of them in turn as they maneuver the tree through the foyer.

"I can't go on," Jo moans. "Please, can't we drop it for a second?"

"We could, if we had a fricking tree stand!" Dean pants, looking around the dusty front room. "You're telling me you brought in the rest of this crap and didn't bring the stand?"

"Um," Sam says.

Bobby, who's just gotten up from his prone position the couch, rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Oh, for the love of—"

The tree stand is quickly retrieved and Dean and Sam wrestle the fir into place, catty-corner from the door. The bark is rough under Castiel's palms as he helps hold it upright so Dean can drop to the floor and roll onto his back to squirm under it. He yells at them to hold it straighter, _no, straighter the other way, damn it, _and tightens the screws until the tree can stand on its own.

"Whew. How are we looking out there?" he asks the room at large.

"Looking good," Ellen confirms. "Nice pick, kids."

"All hail the mighty tree-hunter," Gabriel says with a smirk. Sam and Jo look sour. Dean, covered from the chest up by the fir's lower branches, raises a fist with his middle finger extended.

Now come the lights, and though there are far too many strands to fit on one tree, there are almost too few that work. In the end they have just enough, and the rest are relocated to the trash bins outside.

Then, the ornaments. "Did you bring down every damn box in that loft?" Bobby asks, lifting set after set out of the larger containers. "I think some of these were my Granny's."

Sam, who loves old things, immediately reaches for them with an, "Oh, can I see?" and from that point on withdraws into his own little world, occasional exclamations of, "Wow!" and "This is so cool!" the only reminder he's still in the room. The rest of them work around him, hanging felt birds and glass spheres and a small wooden dog, which, Bobby gruffly explains, his mother purchased when he was a child.

"I think we should put this one at the top of the tree," Gabriel says, and opens his hands to reveal a painted glass angel of impossible delicacy. It has six wings and a noble, almost Roman profile, and Gabriel returns Castiel's arch glance with an impenitent look of his own.

"Ooo," Jo says, reaching for it. "Pretty!"

"That's new," Bobby says, squinting at it. "I think?"

Rufus, combing through various bags with one hand and supporting a steaming mug of something very alcoholic in the other, says, "All that junk we brought home, and no one bothered to pick up any candy canes?"

"Oh, really?" Gabriel asks.

"Wait, I think I see some. Yeah, here we go. Budge up there, Bobby, the damn thing's got enough glass on it already—"

"_Gabriel_," Castiel groans.

"_Castiel,"_ Gabriel replies, plucking a sugarplum from empty air and tossing it in his mouth. Rumsfeld, who has unsurprisingly begun to associate Gabriel with all things edible, rests his head on the archangel's shoulder and drools until he gets one too.

* * *

Later, much later, after the sun sets and dinner ("It's souvlaki!" "It's soo-_what?"_) is had, they come back to the tree to admire its glow in the darkened room. The paint is flaking off the tiny light bulbs and some of the ornaments are quite worn, but Castiel looks from the tree to their warmly lit faces and is reminded of Sam's slow, slurred definition of the word _home. _He can see why a heart might become confused.

Ellen announces her intention to start the wassail, and Bobby counters with a film that, from Dean's description, draws most of its humor from a child's overwhelming desire for a rifle and a lamp shaped like a woman's leg in hosiery. They trickle out of the room, bound for the kitchen or den, and Castiel is about to follow when he notices Sam's lingering in the doorway.

"Sam?"

It's a moment before he looks back, but when he does, he smiles at Castiel. "Hey, Cas. I'll catch up in just a minute, okay?"

"Okay," Castiel says, and stays where he is. Sam's eyes move towards the tree again, and they stand in companionable silence.

Eventually, Sam speaks. "Cas, you're— you're glad you came? With me, I mean."

"Very," Castiel says. "Are you?"

Sam looks at him, head to the side with a little grin. "Glad I came? Or glad you came with me?"

Castiel thinks about this. "Either. No, both. Are you pleased I came?"

"Well, you've definitely distracted them," Sam says wryly. "And Gabriel is much less of a disaster than I was expecting, despite the octopus. So… yes. To either. Both."

"Ah. Good," Castiel says, and they lapse into silence again.

It goes on for long enough that Castiel is considering the appropriateness of a comment on the weather when Sam abruptly says, "You know, my dad might come."

Sam very rarely has anything to say about his father, and even more rarely is it neutral or kind. "Yes?"

"Maybe just for a day," Sam says. His lips are still arranged in the shape of a smile, but he no longer looks happy. "Or maybe not. Like I said, it wasn't an every-year thing for us. But he was in Branson the last Bobby heard, so… he might come."

"All right," Castiel says, slowly. "That's good to know."

"There was this thing he used to do," Sam says, shoving his hands in his pockets with an awkward laugh. "With the tree, when we were kids and we came here. He'd… we'd crawl under and he'd tell us to look up through the branches. He said there were elves or fairies or something and that if we were quiet, they'd come out. It was pretty stupid," he adds.

"Was it?" Castiel asks, and Sam looks away.

"Well, looking back it was," he says quietly. "Sometimes we'd be down here for hours because Dean would swear he'd seen something. Really, I think it was just because the lights look pretty from underneath."

"I want to see," Castiel says immediately, and steps past Sam towards the tree.

"Cas, it's— you'll get needles everywhere," Sam protests, following him.

Castiel kneels next to the tree, considering the narrow gap between tree skirt and the lowest branches. "Hm. How do I—?"

"On your back, but you shouldn't— _Cas,_" Sam says on a laugh, as Castiel lays carefully on his stomach, then rolls directly onto one of the metal struts of the tree stand.

"Ow," Castiel says, craning his head back to judge his distance from the trunk. Too far. He wiggles backwards experimentally, and has to close his eyes as needles scratch his face and tangle in his hair. "This is very, _ow_, uncomfortable."

"I tried to warn you," Sam says, and gentle hands smooth the branches away and feel their way to the back of Castiel's head, urging him on. The strut digs painfully into his back, but Castiel settles against the nubby velvet skirt and looks up into a strange new world of gleaming glass and twinkling, directionless light, the tree's limbs threaded through them like a ladder's rungs.

Something knocks against his shoulder, and Sam wriggles into place beside him, hair falling away from his face as he sets his head down next to Castiel's.

"Okay, so it's a little cool," he says. His chin tips back as he prods a diamond-shaped ornament hanging directly above him, making it spin. "Forced perspective, right?"

"Mmhm," Castiel says, because Sam is suddenly very close, a solid line of heat where their arms touch. Castiel has his head turned towards Sam, and when Sam turns as well Castiel can feel Sam's exhaled breath on his mouth. His lips part in response.

"...Cas?" Sam says softly, the tiny light bulbs leaving smears of yellow and pink and blue on his skin.

"Yes?" Castiel responds, though he's hardly knows of what he's agreeing to. Sam's arm is so warm, heat bleeding through his shirt and Castiel's sweater.

Sam bites his lip, and that small motion arrests Castiel's attention completely. "Listen, Cas. I think—"

"Hey, fairies!" Dean's voice says from far too close, and the tree shakes and lights wobble as he worms his way into the sliver of space on Sam's other side. "I'd forgotten about this! Seen anything yet?"

Sam's head whips around, and he snaps, "Do we look _five_?"

The tree shakes again and Dean yips, "Ow! Why'd you kick me?"

"Because you're an idiot," Sam grumbles, and quickly squirms out from under the tree.

"Bitch," Dean calls after him, moving into his spot. "Cas and I will have more fun without you anyway!"

Although Castiel knows Dean isn't actually an idiot, he can't help but feel a certain desire to kick him as well.

* * *

The days leading up to Christmas are very, very cold, even for winter in South Dakota, Bobby assures them. The ice plagues them, the woodpile dwindles precipitously, and all vehicles are soon declared lost causes and abandoned to their fates, blanketed by layer after layer of snow.

To Castiel, however, the days seem suffused with a peculiar temperateness that comes from his enjoyment of the company, and their evident and somewhat surprising enjoyment of him. There are moments he remembers with sharp clarity— Sam falling asleep slumped against Castiel's shoulder, Gabriel gasping with honest laughter at some sly thing Dean's said— interspersed with long periods that he remembers more as impressions than events: watery morning sunlight, the toboggan's weight. The sting of the wind in his face and the lurch of his stomach as they teeter at the edge of the steep slope. The burst of flavor and heat that is wassail. The way Sam's sweatshirt smells when he pulls it forcibly down over Castiel's head, claiming he's getting cold just _looking_ at him.

The days pass, quietly and happily.

Very early on the eve of Christmas Eve, Castiel is enjoying a bowl of cereal with Dean when he hears something outside, crunching footsteps and muffled laughter drawing closer. A moment later Ellen, Jo and Bobby burst in through the back door, bringing the clean smell of snow and pine with them.

"Hey, boys!" Ellen greets them. "Looks like we won't be snowshoeing to Safeway for our turkey dinner."

Bobby holds up an obviously deceased and alarmingly large bird by its feet, beaming.

"That's not dinner," Dean says blankly, spoon halfway to his mouth. "That is a _dead animal_."

"Hate to break it to you, babe," Jo says cheerily, "but we _eat _dead animals around here."

Castiel looks at Ellen, but the woman is grinning and swinging a brace of at least five smaller but just as thoroughly dead fowl from her shoulder.

"C'mon, he-men," she says cheerfully. "Time to get guttin' and pluckin'."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Dean breathes.

He isn't, but Sam is, after coming downstairs still yawning only to be faced with the disemboweled remains of the dead turkey strewn across the newspaper-covered kitchen table.

Dean's still making fun of him when he emerges from the bathroom half an hour later, but by then Gabriel is up and has his octopus out, and strangely enough no one wants to be in the same room with it and its long, fleshy arms. They evacuate the kitchen, Dean the quickest of any of them, but he snags Castiel's sleeve as he goes and says, "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?"

He seems oddly wary, and he keeps glancing around as if to make sure they're alone in Bobby's study. It's barely occurred to Castiel to be worried when Dean lowers his voice and says, "I found this weird book in Baton Rouge, I need you to tell me if Sam will like it," and apprehension dissolves like frost in sunlight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Quick A/N**: Despite attempts to spread it out, or at least move the chapter break so it wasn't so concentrated, Chapter Numero Quatre contains 98.2% of all the angst, blood and drama in this bb. Warning for genre whiplash.

* * *

There's a time, after Castiel has first Fallen, when he leaves Gabriel and wanders over the earth like a fickle wind of salvation. Where there is drought, he brings rain; when he comes upon the sick and the injured, he heals them. He hears the prayers of hundreds and performs thousands of miracles, until he is a hollowed-out husk barely moored in human flesh and bone. This, Gabriel tells him, is the poetic fate of many rebellious seraphim who are cast out: to die in base service to humankind, cut off from Heaven and any chance of renewal or redemption.

"Or you could just, you know, ignore them," Gabriel says, after he collects Castiel's dying body from the rocky shores of Lake Karakul. "It's not really that hard. Look, I'm doing it right now! Amazing."

"But they suffer," Castiel rasps, feeling as scraped thin and fragile as an empty eggshell.

"Endlessly," Gabriel agrees. "Which is why there's no _point_, Castiel."

"I can help," Castiel insists.

"Sure, if you're suicidal," Gabriel says. "Are you?"

Castiel scowls hazily up at him, little more than a dark figure haloed by the cruel mountain sun. He has no wish to end his existence; in fact, he finds himself grown very attached, now that there is imminent danger of losing it.

"… no."

"Good answer. Now, I'm only willing to do this once," Gabriel says, laying his hands on Castiel's chest. Though they don't know it yet, it's a lie. "Because I like you." Also of debatable veracity. "And because I take a special, special joy in thwarting Michael's designs whenever and wherever I can." That much, at least, is true. "So hold on to your hat, cowboy, this part can hurt a little."

Swallowing even a thread of archangel grace is, as it turns out, almost as painful as falling.

So Castiel learns ignorance, and selfishness. He learns the blind eye and the deaf ear. He is very bad at it. Gabriel questions his mental capacity, and failing that, his ability to take orders as a proper soldier of the Lord.

"But I'm not a soldier," Castiel says weakly, too exhausted to pretend he's not clinging to Gabriel's wings. "Not anymore. I've fallen."

"Yeah, at this point you're much more leech-like," Gabriel grumbles, irritation ruffling the feathers that cradle Castiel to him. "It's like I'm talking to myself. Or a badly-trained Schnauzer that won't stop running into traffic. Repeat after me, Castiel: food. Water. Bandaids. These are not complicated measures to take!"

So Castiel eats, and Castiel sleeps.

"And no miracles!"

Time after time, he finds Gabriel's last admonition impossible to obey.

* * *

Castiel could think it was just another dream, a nightmare jarringly out of place in the unhurried run of days they've had at Bobby's house. There's something in Dean's eyes, though, in Jo's— an alien gleam of mistrust, a new wariness he hadn't seen there before. Or perhaps he'd just never noticed it.

It started with Sam, and it ends with Sam: Sam and the half-frozen river churning sluggishly through the woods, and Dean's foolish, "Come on out, guys, the water's fine!"

There's no warning before the splintering crack of ice breaking under their feet. Jo screams, Dean gets out one surprised, "Whoa!" and Sam does not say anything at all. He simply disappears.

They're twenty feet from either steep bank and the snow laying over the ice is almost a foot high, free-flowing water showing only in patches, too few, too far. Castiel is on his knees on a thin sheet that bobs and sways when Dean launches himself at the choppy water where Sam stood a moment ago, arms plunging into the surprisingly small gap before it can close. "Sam!"

"Oh my God," Jo says, scrambling forward, then back as the ice tilts. "Dean, be careful—"

Sam is under the water for five seconds, ten, and Dean yells, "Fuck, come on, come _on!_ _Sam!"_

Castiel pulls Dean away and Dean fights him the entire way, striking out at his hands and lunging for the gap again as soon as he breaks free. Castiel throws him, the second time.

The water is so breathtakingly cold that it doesn't even register as wet, and for a moment Castiel is unaware of anything but the shock of it. The air leaves his lungs in a stream of bubbles and a mouthful of void replaces it. He can't see Sam. He can't see anything.

Dean's body crashes into his and they both sink, startlingly quickly. Castiel's wings begin to edge into reality of their own accord, fighting the current and lighting the dark, muddy water around him. At his back, he thinks he hears Dean give a muffled shout.

Sam's eyes are open, blue-white light reflecting back at Castiel as he stares. His mouth is open too, in confusion or desperation, and his fingers reach for the surface that falls further and further away as he sinks.

Castiel dives for him, all his limbs in concert. Where his wings slice through it the water boils into steam.

Sam has his arms up as if he's bracing for impact when Castiel reaches him, current pulling them both to deeper, murkier depths, but his face has gone slack, his eyes barely open.

The void in Castiel's mouth transmutes to words, and the words are, "_Sam, Sam, Sam."_

Sam is almost certainly already unconscious, and Castiel is imagining what he wants to see— but he swears that in that moment Sam's pale lips move, and he mouths Castiel's name in answer.

* * *

"You're fine," Bobby announces, sounding surprised and relieved as he looks at the thermometer in his hand. "98.2 degrees."

"Can I take some of these off, then?" Sam asks from the couch, pulling pointedly at the topmost layer of the blankets draped over him. "I'm getting kind of hot."

"No," Dean and Castiel say at the same time. They look at each other, where they would have shared a smile before Dean instead gives Castiel a cool, considering look over Sam's head.

"Hey, Bobby, can I talk to you for a second?" he says casually. "Jo, stay with Sam."

It's a little too flat to be a suggestion, and Jo nods jerkily, sitting with her knees drawn up on the chair opposite.

Dean glances down at Sam for a moment as if for reassurance, hand straying to his shoulder. Sam nods. Dean returns it, and motions Bobby to follow him as he walks back towards the stairs. Bobby frowns at the two of them, but gets to his feet and goes.

Castiel stares after them, uneasy, but when Sam says, "Hey, Cas?" he immediately kneels in front of him, a hand on the cushions for balance. Castiel's hair is still damp from the water, and it tickles unpleasantly at the back of his neck.

"Yes?"

"Thank you," Sam says quietly. "I don't— I'm not remembering much, honestly. I remember falling in, but… Dean says you pulled us both out?"

There's a larger question there, but Castiel simply says, "As quickly as I could. Sam, are you sure you're alright?"

Sam's face is pale, brows drawn together as if in pain, but still he smiles wanly and shakes his head. "I'm fine," he promises. "I just… I think I need a nap. Why don't you go help Gabriel?"

It's Christmas Eve, and Gabriel has been in the kitchen since the sun rose. "Alright," Castiel says reluctantly. "But if you need anything…"

"I'll be fine," Sam says again, softer. "Go on."

Castiel goes.

* * *

Gabriel is alone, standing at the counter with his back to the door while he uses smooth, rhythmic strokes to skin a row of carrots and parsnips. Long strips fall away from the blade and into the sink.

"I felt that, you know," he says mildly, when Castiel hesitates at the door.

"I know," Castiel says, resigned, and steps inside. He shoves the sleeves of Sam's sweater up to his elbows. "What do you need help with?"

Gabriel gives him a sidelong look, but he sets the knife aside and unties the apron draped haphazardly around his waist. "Peel these, for a start. And try not to cut off any fingers until I get back."

He brushes past Castiel without another word of instruction, tossing the apron at his head before disappearing around the corner.

"Of course I won't," Castiel says, annoyed. He's still careful when he picks up the knife, and angles the blade away from his hand; there's no use tempting the Fates, especially when he knows Atropos at least isn't particularly fond of him.

It's an absorbing, exacting process. There's an old radio on top of the even older refrigerator to his left, static crackling periodically over someone emphatically demanding a hippopotamus for Christmas. Castiel hums to himself, enjoying the simple task of removing the thinnest amount of skin possible before setting the root aside and reaching for the next, again and again, nothing about the warm kitchen and syrupy-golden sun outside to remind him of the river and how cold Sam's hand had been in his.

The light has shifted and he's gone through the majority of the pile before he hears someone walk into the room behind him.

"I haven't cut myself at all, Gabriel," he says, slicing the greens free from a carrot's top before holding up his hand. "See?"

"Way to go, Cas," Sam says, and Castiel glances sharply over his shoulder.

"You should be lying down," he says, leaving the knife on the cutting board and turning to him. "Why aren't you lying down?"

"I really don't feel all that bad," Sam says with a strained smile. "And… I've got something for you."

Castiel tilts his head. "For me?"

"Yeah," Sam says, and holds up, of all things, a necklace. There's a small charm dangling from it, something that winks and flashes in the light. "Come here?"

Castiel obediently comes forward, wiping his hand on his apron and reaching for the long chain.

Sam holds it away from him. "Let me."

"… if you'd like to," Castiel says, slowly dropping his hands.

He watches Sam's face carefully as the man lifts the necklace over his head. He's a bit puzzled, both by the odd gift and the pinched, almost wounded look in Sam's eyes, the barely-perceptible shake in his fingers. Whatever Sam says, he certainly doesn't _look _like he's feeling well at all. Impulsively, Castiel rocks up on his toes. He's just tall enough to press a small, brief kiss to Sam's lower lip, and he can't help but think maybe this time—

The chain is _heavy_, heavy as a leaden anchor, and Castiel staggers into Sam with a gasp as his knees buckle. "What—?"

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers. The floor is suddenly so much closer than it had been. Castiel's cheek throbs where it's hit the ground and still the chain drags at him, at his whole body, the pressure squeezing his lungs until there isn't even air to ask Sam what he's sorry for.

The light around him gutters and goes out, and Castiel doesn't see much of anything after that.

* * *

It feels like a strangely long time before he emerges from that darkness. It's lonely there, and cold.

He's cold.

* * *

Castiel feels the faintest kiss of ice on his forehead, then another on his cheek. Chin. Eyelid.

He opens his eyes, slowly.

Snow continues to fall, tiny pin-pricks of sensation on his skin. It's almost invisible, drifting down from the pearl-gray clouds. A shadow eclipses Castiel's vision, and it's a few seconds before his eyes adjust enough to see the tense line of Gabriel's mouth.

"Welcome back," his brother says. He's crouched next to Castiel, rows and rows of wings mantled aggressively for anyone with the eyes to see them. Trees stick out of the snow around them like bare bones, the tangled reaches of their branches clawing at the sky.

"What," Castiel tries, but his throat aches and the word cracks down the middle. He swallows, and tries again. "What happened?"

"What happened is that _you're a fucking idiot_," Gabriel snarls. "They nearly killed you."

"They— who?" Castiel asks, bewildered.

"Oh, gee, I don't know," Gabriel says, "any one of the houseful of _hunters_ you dragged us into the middle of? Hunters, Castiel!"

"Hunters?" he asks. "Yes, they hunt, but I don't see—"

"Hunters of things like us, you brainless fledgling! Of things that aren't human!"

Castiel hadn't been aware such humans existed, in any organized sense. He lifts a hand to his neck. "Sam, he—"

"Yeah, he got you," Gabriel mutters, looking around the empty forest. "Dean tried the same trick, but there aren't many artefacts left that can take me out. Lucky for you."

"But— what happened? After?" Castiel swallows. "Did you—"

"None of them are dead," Gabriel says, wings stirring restlessly. "Probably. You need new friends, Castiel."

Castiel grabs him by the sleeve, with what feels like half his normal strength. "But," he says, and is surprised to find his vision blurring, a wet warmth burning in his eyes and overflowing onto his cheeks.

Gabriel glances back down at him, and sighs. "I am sorry," he murmurs, reaching for Castiel. "I'm sorry it has to be this way."

"But _why_," Castiel says, "why did he—"

"I don't know," Gabriel says, holding him tightly. "They're humans, Castiel, they're pointless, insignificant little meat puppets—"

"They are not!" Castiel cries, pushing at him. "They aren't, Gabriel, I know you don't really think that. Please."

"Please, what?" Gabriel says, looking suddenly exhausted. "Go back? Tell them we're the _good_ kind of monster, not the ones that kill the firstborn and smite entire cities? Oh, wait—"

"Gabriel," Castiel says helplessly. "We can't just leave."

"We can," Gabriel says, eyes hard. "It's easy."

"I _won't_ leave," Castiel says, rolling to his side to get unsteadily to his knees in the deep snow. "I'll explain. I'm sure they'll listen."

"Castiel, I found Sam standing over your unconscious body with a knife," Gabriel says, grabbing his arm. "There's really nothing ambiguous about that. If you go back, you'll die, and I don't want that to happen."

"Gabriel—"

"They never understand!" Gabriel yells in his face, and Castiel stops pulling for a moment, shocked. "Millennia, Castiel, do you understand? Millennia of watching this happen over and over again. You're not the first to Fall, and you're not the first to fall for a human. It never works out, Castiel. Never."

"… I want to try," Castiel says, very quietly. "I have to at least _try_, Gabriel."

Gabriel is stone-faced and silent for long enough that Castiel turns away, looking off into the woods.

"Brother, please," he says.

"… we'll go back," the archangel says softly. "They'll reject us. We'll leave."

"Thank you," Castiel says, turning back. "Thank for that much."

* * *

Something is wrong.

Something is very, very wrong, and the house is deserted when they reach it, the wards torn to wraith-like shreds. The front door shifts open at a touch, the wood where the knob had once been completely shattered.

"Did you do this?" Castiel asks, staring into the unlit rooms. Window-glass cracks and crunches under his feet.

Gabriel's expression is wary. "Some of it. Not the door. Not that."

He points, and a shadow lying on the floor resolves into a dark streak of blood. Castiel almost drops to his knees in the hallway, but Gabriel grips his wrist so hard the bones shift.

"I… I think I hear—"

Ellen moves quickly for a woman her age. Luckily for Castiel, Gabriel is that much quicker, and he has her pinned to the wall before Castiel even realizes the danger. She chokes, struggling against his grip across her throat, and Gabriel lets up just enough for her to get out, "You goddamn sonova—"

"We are not here to hurt you," Castiel says. Ellen gives him a plainly disbelieving look, and Castiel motions for Gabriel to let her go. Gabriel stares at him for a long moment, but at Castiel's sharp, "_Gabriel_," lowers her to the ground.

Ellen coughs and rubs her throat, eyeing them defiantly. "Came back to finish us off?"

"I told you, we are not here to hurt you," Castiel says. "Where are the others?"

Ellen spits on the floor. "Fuck, I think you hurt us plenty."

Castiel notices, for the first time, the long furrows are dug deep in the flesh, blood oozing through the shirt she's tied around it as a makeshift bandage. "What _happened_?" he exclaims, reaching out. She jerks her arm away before he touches her. "Ellen—"

"Castiel," Gabriel says, inhaling over the flat of his tongue. "Do you smell that?"

Castiel frowns at him, and unfurls his wings through the surround rooms, looking for—

Ellen's knife streaks through the air, so close to his face he feels the breeze of its passage, and a hellhound yelps as it staggers briefly into visibility.

"Demons!" Castiel calls to Gabriel, almost gagging on the sudden rush of sulfur, and hears Gabriel's "_No shit," _just before the rest of the pack charges them.

It's brutally quick and bloody, and they force their back towards the kitchen where the sulfur hangs in a palpable haze. Gabriel blows out the door and they tumble into the snowy yard, Ellen with a sawed-off shotgun and shells she pulls from the breadbox, Castiel with his blade flashing between long fangs and mad, dead eyes.

"I fucking hate these things," Gabriel says after they've killed them all, making a face at the black seeping into his shirt. "Ugh."

Castiel pulls his hand from inside the ribcage of a smoking carcass and shakes the ash off. "Likewise. Ellen, are you—"

"Just dandy, thanks," Ellen says, both barrels trained on his chest. "Neat trick with the lightning."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. Castiel sighs.

"I promise we mean you no harm," he says, holding his hands palms-up. "Truly."

"See, Cas, I can only take your word for that," Ellen says. "And nothing I've seen so far has made me think you're anything worth trusting."

"But… we saved you," Castiel says, confused, and Ellen chuckles bitterly.

"You let them in," she says darkly.

Castiel looks at Gabriel, who purses his lips.

"I _may_ have destroyed the wards on egress," he allows. "Accidentally, you understand."

"And then we get these lovely visitors," Ellen says, swinging the shotgun to face him. "Are you telling me the two aren't related?"

"I have no way of knowing—"

"Wait," Castiel says in sudden inspiration. "Gabriel. What about Crowley?"

Gabriel's eyes narrow. "Crowley?"

"Does he know you're here? And Sam—"

"But that doesn't make any sense," Gabriel says instead of answering the question. "It's _too early, _Castiel, he and I agreed on that. And he's had every opportunity to renege and take Sam if he wanted him."

"I think if something changed his mind, we've led him to a perfect opportunity to take both Sam _and _Dean," Castiel says grimly, getting to his feet.

"What's a Crowley?" Ellen asks, swinging the barrels between them. "Who are you? _What _are you, if you aren't demons?"

"We are angels of the Lord," Castiel says.

Ellen stares. "Like fun you are."

"Be not afraid," Gabriel says dryly. "Incidentally, there's a rapidly fading spectral trail we should be following if we want to find our missing."

"I'm not saying I'm convinced," Ellen says, holding the shotgun close to her chest. "But if you take me to Jo, I'll call it even."

She's bleeding from new wounds on her face and chest, and the shirt around her arm is soaked through. "Are you sure you're well enough to continue?" Castiel asks, and she laughs, tossing her hair out of her eyes.

"It's just not Christmas if you ain't killing things," she says. "Now, let's go find us some demons."

* * *

Bobby and Rufus they find unconscious in the junkyard, and whatever injuries they have are gone when Gabriel helps them up.

"I'm getting really tired of this," the archangel says, gently setting aside a red-faced, murderous Bobby after confiscating the man's rifle, pistol, and butterfly knife. "Which way did the hounds run?"

The answer, as it turns out, is into the woods.

"There are empty properties up that way," Bobby says, once he's settled down. "Might be that they've been hiding out there."

"You're saying you're an _angel_?" Rufus says, for the third or fourth time. "Michael Landon angels?"

"More like 'Wings of Desire', right, Cassie?" Gabriel says.

"We have to find them," Castiel says without even hearing the jibe, a sense of urgency rising in his chest. He starts towards the trees.

* * *

They find Jo in a creek at the bottom of a ravine, cold and stiff until Gabriel lays his hands on her.

"That's funny," she says, coughing out the blood in bright splashes on the new snow. "Could have sworn I just had my lungs aerated."

"Dodge better next time," Ellen says, and if her voice is a little shaky in relief, no one says anything.

* * *

"So what you're saying," Jo says, very slowly, like she's having trouble piecing together even that many words, "is that they've kidnapped Sam because Sam is… the devil's homecoming dress?"

"A potential dress," Gabriel says distractedly, wings sweeping outward in ever-widening circles. "The big boss likes the look of his bloodlines, but he's not sure if Sam'll go with the shoes he's already picked out. Might have to go back to the JCPenny's, find another sibling pair. _There we go._" His eyes spark bright gold. "I see them."

"Whoa now," Ellen says, hands out, "see the—?"

There's a rush of air and snow, a terrifying flash of the void. A single snap of Gabriel's wings brings them to the edge of a winter-fallow field, the broken corn stocks jutting out of the earth like knives.

"Jesus fucking Christ_,_" Rufus gasps, bent over with his hands on his knees.

"_Christ_," Ellen echoes, looking out over the field.

The sun is near setting somewhere behind the dense cloudcover, and the world is a thousand shades of gunmetal grey. Castiel sees an old farmhouse squatting a hundred feet ahead, across the field.

Sam's there. He knows it. But between their position and house there must be more than fifty demons— black-eyed men and women, even children, who look to Castiel's eyes like they're burning in a clear dark fire. They hold cleavers and handguns and rusty scythes, and pace forward with the hellhounds prowling after, growls rising in their wake like distant thunder.

"Piece of cake," Gabriel grins, sword bare and ready. His eyes are already starting to spill blue-white light.

"You must be the archangel," one of the closer demons says with a broad smile, unafraid. "Heya, Gabe. Bossman gave us something real special for you."

"Catch!" calls another.

The flaming arch of holy oil doesn't have to be accurate; just the tiny spatter that hits Castiel's side is enough to momentarily blind with pain. He staggers to the side, and Gabriel goes up in a cry of agony that stops abruptly as his vessel burns away.

_"Gabriel!"_ Castiel screams, but he's gone, and the demons are lunging forward with whooping laughter like howls. He disables three in quick succession before their sheer numbers mire him in darting stabs and defensive sweeps. The humans behind him have salt and their exorcisms, but the demons overwhelm them as well. They can't even _hear _hellhounds, Castiel realizes with horror, and tears the head from one with his bare hands before it can do the same to Bobby.

He remembers the fighting in Ophir and Cimmeria, how the mere brush of his wings would have incinerated twice this number of hellspawn then. Those days are so long past him that he half-doubts the memories themselves, soaked to the elbows as he wades in with his hands and his sword.

But they're gaining ground. The farmhouse is closer now, the demons fewer. It's more difficult to burn their spectral bodies out of the sky than from vessels, and each wrenching pull seems to tear something in his chest, but he leaves a trail of their sooty imprints on the snow behind him.

His steps are starting to falter, but he throws himself forward, again and again until the rotted railing of the porch is under his hand. He reels backwards as a round from Ellen's shotgun takes out a possessed man inches from his face, then staggers up the steps. The door has a banishing glyph scrawled across it, but the ax he takes from the loosened grip of the demon's dead host makes short work of it.

The inside of the house is colder, somehow, than the field. Castiel's wheezing breaths hang in the air above him like ghosts.

"Go," Bobby says from behind him, and Castiel looks over his shoulder to see him positioning himself in the open door, rifle at the ready. Beside him, Jo holds a machete as long as her forearm. "Find Sam and Dean, Cas. We'll hold them off."

"I can't ask you to—"

"_Go!"_ Bobby bellows as remaining demons begin to converge, and fires another deafening round into the crowd. Castiel runs.

The house is longer than it should be. Larger. The smell of decay and abandoned places is too strong for how cold it is, the darkness too settled. The shadows have palpable weight on his tongue as he stumbles deeper into them, fumbling blindly from room to room.

It gets very quiet, then quieter, until the silence has its own oppressive heaviness.

Thin grey light spills from an open doorway ahead, and Castiel's harsh breaths are the only sound as he eases around the corner.

Sam is seated at the head of a formal dining table set for thirteen, arms hanging limp at his sides. He barely looks conscious. Something thick and viscous has been smeared over his mouth, dripping down his chin to land in dark spots on his shirt and the fine porcelain plate in front of him.

There's another figure on the floor behind the table, leather and ripped denim lying motionless on the muddy carpet. Castiel hopes Dean is only hurt, and not worse.

The third person in the room stands with his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the battle outside with evident pleasure, and Castiel would know this twisted soul even from the bottom of the Pit.

"... Azazel," Castiel says quietly, and the man-shaped monster turns to face him, smile wide and mocking.

"Angel," the demon answers patronizingly. "I wonder, what's that look for?"

Castiel takes a deliberate step closer. "To be frank, I was expecting someone else."

"Oh?"

"How did you find us?" Castiel asks bluntly, and Azazel chuckles.

"Oh, I see. I _found_ you," he says, "because Crowley is a conniving, spineless little bastard, and I do mean that literally. Ever ripped out someone's spine? Such a godawful mess. It really only comes in pieces, no matter what you do."

"I can't say that I have," Castiel says, edging forward.

Azazel kicks Dean's legs aside and steps up to lay a paternal hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam doesn't react. "Well, even cowards can be useful. Crowley told me my little boy was in trouble, and gosh, he was right. I suppose I have you to thank for this?"

Castiel holds his gaze. "For what?"

Azazel grips Sam's hair and tugs, angling his face towards the weak light from the shattered window. "I don't appreciate having all my hard work undone by some pesky little cherub."

Sam's eyelids flutter, a flash of whites, and his lips part on a faint noise of protest. His teeth gleam wet and red.

"You—" Castiel inhales sharply, immediately reaching for him, only to be stopped by Azazel's open palm.

"Ah ah ah," the demon says softly. "You should let it settle. I don't think that human shell is handling it too well— there's a reason I call the little children unto me, angel. It's easier on them."

"Get away from him," Castiel says, hands still poised to touch. To heal, if he can. This has always been a part of Sam, but the few faint and fading remnants Castiel has been quietly burning out since he met Sam are nothing compared to the rot spreading in him now.

"Or you'll do what, exactly?" Azazel asks with a lazy sneer. "Kick me in the shins?"

"If you insist," Dean gasps from the floor, and takes him out at the knees.

Castiel lunges for Sam and pulls him out of the chair as Azazel topples backwards with an indignant curse, out of the way as the walls begin shake and the demon's wrath swells in the room like a separate, malevolent entity. Sam's eyes are open now, and fighting to focus on him. "_C's…_"

"It will be okay," Castiel says, struggling to haul him away as the shadows turn edged and start to prowl after them.

"Bet you think you're _funny_," Azazel growls. A hard noise of impact, and Dean's body skids across the table, shattering plates and glassware. He hits the floor and rolls into a wall, coughing raggedly.

"_Dean_," Sam says a little more clearly, trying to sit up, and Azazel's cold yellow eyes roll in their direction.

"Oh, Sammy, don't think I'm done with you," he says, raising a hand. Castiel throws his wings up in a futile effort to shield them, and the pain is _indescribable_. It makes him think of burrowing, biting things, of a cancer eating at his grace. He curls over Sam as it wriggles deeper, catching a scream behind his teeth. So be it. If it takes his wings, he'll block it with his human flesh.

"Cas, what's wrong?" Sam says shakily, mouth close to his ear.

"Nothing a little dying won't fix," Azazel says dismissively. "Push him off. We need to talk."

"Fuck you," Sam snarls, pulling himself up straighter.

The demon tskes. A creak of floorboards puts him right in front of Castiel's face, should he raise his head. He wants to; he wants to make that one last defiant stand, but it hurts, it hurts so badly.

And hidden between their bodies, Sam is prying the hilt of Castiel's sword from his fingers.

"Who are you?" Sam asks, angry, like he's tearing the words with his teeth. "What do you even want?"

"What does any father want?" Azazel asks on a laugh. "I want my prodigal son back in the fold. I've got to let you in on a little secret, Sammy— your siblings might be a little quicker off the mark, but you've always been my favorite."

"For _what?_" Sam says, sounding frustrated.

Azazel sounds closer, suddenly, like he's bent at the waist. "You've got a glorious destiny, kiddo."

"I— I do?"

"We're going to rule the world," Azazel says, all sanctimonious satisfaction. "Just wait and see—"

Sam moves quickly, striking out like a snake, and Castiel looks up to see his sword angled expertly through Azazel's ribcage, buried in his heart.

To his horror, though, the demon staggers but doesn't fall, and his grin only gets wider. "Oh, Sam," he says thickly, blood bubbling on his lips. He yanks the blade out of his chest with a grunt and drops it on the floor. "Sammy. You're just _too_ perfect."

"Blah blah blah," Gabriel says from the doorway. "Fire, brimstone. End of days, firstborn sons, does this vessel make my ass look big?"

He swaggers into the room, and the shadows scurry aside like rats. He's wearing a tiger's smile, more threat than mirth.

"Look, Azzie. Can I call you Azzie? I love my brother, but he's a great big bag of dicks and thirty-two flavors of crazy."

In the crawling dark of the hallway, his wings make a perfect six-point star. Azazel falls back a single, terrified step, and Castiel pulls Sam down.

"The Cage is the best place for him," Gabriel says, smile gone, voice low, and the air in the damp room superheats.

For a long stretch of seconds, there _are_ no shadows. Azazel is reduced to a sliver of black, and then nothing. Everything lies revealed, light pouring into the room from all angles. Sam's eyes are open wide and unafraid as he stares at Castiel's face, and Castiel soaks it in, the gaze and the light, until the pain falls away and he can gets his arms under him.

_"And good riddance_," Gabriel sings, and the humans in the room wince and grab their heads.

"Gabriel," Castiel warns him, although he'd sing too if he could.

"Humans are so fucking _delicate_," the archangel grumbles. "Damn, that felt good."

He's reaching for Dean's prone body with a still-glowing hand as he says it, and Dean jerks violently away, rolling to his side and brandishing Castiel's bloodied angel blade.

"Dad damn it, again?" Gabriel says. "We're kind of obviously the good guys here, Dean-o"

Dean's breathing hard, face bruised and his hand shaking where it grips the sword. "You were..." he swallows audibly. "Kind of lion-headed for a second?"

"Was I?" Gabriel asks, smoothing down his hair. "Oops."

Castiel is vaguely aware of Dean getting to his feet, swaying and almost falling before Gabriel gets an arm under his, and the sudden, noisy entry of Ellen, Jo, Bobby and Rufus.

But Sam is touching unsteady fingers to his mouth, eyes dark and horrified, and Castiel cups his cheek in mute understanding.

"It will hurt," he says, mindful of Dean dropping to the floor beside them. "But I will heal you. I won't allow it home or hearth within you."

There's an old, old curse that's tied itself to this blood, sunk deep in Sam's very bones, and he can't remove it all, not now. But miracles are something of a specialty to him, and he possesses the patience of oceans. He will not stumble. Not with Sam.

"Yeah?" Sam asks softly.

"I swear," Castiel says with quiet fierceness. Sam blinks, and stares.

"You— when you say that. I can see your halo."

Castiel smiles tentatively. "Yes?"

"It's amazing," Sam says, looking dazed. His hand drops, and he sways a little. "… I'm really hungry?"

At his side, Dean laughs softly, grabbing him around the shoulders and squeezing. "Hey, buddy, I think we've got just the thing."


	5. Chapter 5

Dinner is an enormous, if belated, affair. When they return to the house, there are three unfamiliar trucks in the driveway and a handful of men and women who, after application of holy water and silver knives, look very relieved to see them alive. Two of the more enterprising have piled scrap wood in a cleared circle in the backyard, and are squirting lighter fluid over the smoky bodies of the dead hellhounds. When Bobby whistles, Rumsfeld crawls out from under the nearest junker and makes his slow way through the snow to his side, tail wagging steady as a metronome.

"You goddamn morons," one woman greets them, grin wide and her grip hearty as she hugs Ellen and Jo. "Scaring us like that. And what'n the hell are these? Did that voudoun priestess come this year?"

"Bite your tongue, Tara," Rufus says with a grimace, and there's a collective shudder from the assembled.

It's after midnight when they all finally take their seats. Outside the windows the world has a taken on a pearl-like finish, moonlight gleaming on the windswept snow. Inside, everything is a trifle too warm, but after Gabriel snaps the blood away, Castiel keeps wearing Sam's sweater. The sleeves make excellent substitute oven mitts.

"You looking to feed an army, or what?" Rufus says as they bring out yet another heaping side dish. The dining room table isn't quite big enough for all of them, so they've dragged in the narrow kitchen table and a sideboard from the living room. Jo's nose is hardly an inch above the top of the tablecloth, and a hunter of South Asian descent balances precariously on a barstool two feet above his plate. Notably, he looks both flabbergasted and deliriously happy to see Gabriel's octopus, arranged in thin pieces on a platter with lime and stewed greens of some kind.

"Or what," Bobby agrees, carefully maneuvering their enormous turkey onto the very end of the table. "Got us a lot of hungry mouths here."

It's very noisy, and despite the lateness and the deep snow there must be twenty people trying to fit their knees and elbows around the table. Castiel finds himself squeezed in between Sam and Dean, their shoulders knocking into his companionably as Gabriel appropriates most of Dean's seat in addition to his own.

"Angels, huh," Jo says, under the general clatter.

Gabriel salutes her over a comically large plate of mashed potatoes, creamed corn and fried locusts. "In the flesh, _muchacha._"

"But why?" Ellen asks.

"I liked the climate," Gabriel says, popping a locust in his mouth. _"Mmm. _These are just the right kind of crunchy. Anybody else want some?"

"Keep your damn bugs to yourself," Rufus grumbles.

"The natives are so friendly, too," Gabriel says with a sardonic grin. "What's not to love?"

"And you, Cas?" Bobby says. "You just decided all that harp-playing was for the birds?"

"Although I perpetrated many small rebellions and disobediences, I believe the final straw was when I called Michael an assbutt," Castiel says, nibbling at the end of one of his peeled carrots.

"Assbutt," Jo says flatly.

"_Assbutt?" _Dean chokes out. "Are you _serious_?"

"It sounds much worse in Enochian," Castiel says defensively.

On Dean's other side Gabriel has his face in his hands, silent laughter caught in his ribcage as he shakes. "Oh, Cassie. _Cassie_," he says, tears glinting in his eyes when he looks up. "I knew it had to be boring, because you're, well, you. But I thought you'd at least had _some_ fun."

"It was quite gratifying," Castiel disagrees. "I have honestly never seen him look so fruitlessly enraged."

They eat, and they talk, well into the small hours of the night. Outside, the snow falls. Somewhere beyond this place, this house, there is evil, and there are demons who will not stop at kidnapping or murder or the breaking of the world in two to get what they want. He knows this.

Sam passes him the bread rolls, and their eyes meet. He gives Castiel a little smile, something small and warm, and their legs brush under the table.

Castiel knows. But he also knows that this, the night when humanity chooses to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, is a time of comfort and miracles, and though he has long stopped expecting his Father to answer, Castiel closes his eyes and bows his head.

He prays for the brave man beside him, and for happiness, and for peace.

* * *

"Hey, Cas."

Castiel hears Sam only vaguely, as though sleep is a pool he's sunk to the bottom of. "Mmph."

"Cas?"

"Aw, let him sleep," Dean says, even more distantly. "Poor guy could probably use a few zees."

"Easy for you to say," Sam retorts, and under Castiel's head something shifts restlessly. "My whole leg is numb."

"Mmgh?" Castiel asks without opening his eyes, rolling a bare inch to the side. Draped over Castiel's stomach, Rumsfeld gives an irritated wuff and resettles.

"Now you've done it," Gabriel says. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'let sleeping dogs lie'?"

"Sleeping dogs are cutting off my circulation," Sam grumbles, but his hand is on his thigh next to Castiel's head, fingers brushing idly through his hair as if by accident. Castiel nudges into the touch with a sigh. He likes Sam's hands.

"Good Lord," Gabriel groans. "What did I say about being sad and vanilla?"

"Sh'up," Castiel says drowsily. "Sleeping."

"About that," Sam says with amusement. "We need to get off the couches soon. More than a few of hunters are staying, and I think all four of us are going to be demoted to the attic tonight."

Castiel's eyes slit open. "Hm?"

"But it's so _cold _up there," Dean whines, crossing his legs at the ankles on the ottoman.

"It's fine, you big baby," Sam says with an eye roll. He's definitely petting Castiel now, knuckles rubbing firmly over his temple.

"I've got a plan," Gabriel says grandly. He's made a point to stretch out the full length of the couch opposite, compressing Dean into a corner and still managing to take up half his lap.

"Oh crap," Sam says, deadpan. "Everybody run."

Gabriel straightens up with a lingering groan. "_Mmmm. _You have fun bunking in the attic with kitty-Cas, Samsquatch."

"And what are _you_ going to do, smartass?" Dean asks with a half-grin, head braced on his hand.

Gabriel smirks, and snaps.

After a moment, Sam says, "Should... we be worried about that?"

Castiel frowns at the suddenly empty couch across from them. "I'm not entirely sure."

At that moment, Bobby sticks his head around the corner and says, "Bedtime, boys. By which I mean get the hell out of my bed, boys."

Rumsfeld gives a few protesting whines as Castiel wriggles out from underneath him, but eventually accepts the inevitable and allows himself to be removed. Sam gets Castiel on his feet, laughs for a good minute at the state of his hair, and ends up tugging him along like a tugboat in his wake as he makes for the stairs.

"God, it's four in the morning," he says, squinting at the clock on the wall as they troop past it. There's a penny poker game still going strong in the kitchen as they walk by, and Jo calls, "Goodnight!" when she sees them. The stairs are markedly more difficult to navigate when half-asleep, and Sam gets to laugh a little more.

The attic _is _cold, the dim light from the single naked bulb hardly enough to illuminate the two bare mattresses and an assortment of ancient sleeping bags and ugly woolen throws. "It's not the Ritz," Sam says dryly, and Castiel ignores him in favor of crawling into the disorderly knot of bedding and flopping down face-first.

"You're going to suffocate," Sam predicts. Castiel grunts. "At least unbutton your pants?"

"Sleeping," Castiel explains.

Sam snorts. "Yeah, I got that."

There are some rustling noises, and footsteps that come and go. A click, and the feeble light is gone. Then creaking springs.

When it becomes clear Sam has taken the other mattress and its obviously inadequate number of musty-smelling blankets, Castiel makes a sound of deep annoyance and feels his way blindly across the small distance that separates them, dragging the sleeping bags with him.

"Cas?" Sam says on a yawn.

"Hmph," Castiel grumbles, dropping himself on Sam's chest and surprising an _"Oomf!" _from him. Sam's skin bleeds warmth through his thin cotton t-shirt, and Castiel settles in with a pleased murmur.

"Um… okay then." Sam's arms come slowly around him, a hand sliding low on his waist. "Cas?"

Castiel is not awake enough to do more than make an inquiring noise.

"Cas, listen, I… I just wanted to say…"

Fingers slide under his chin, gently tipping his head up. This feels important, somehow. Castiel should probably open his eyes.

"Thank you," Sam breathes across his mouth, and kisses him.

It's dry and hot, close-lipped, and somehow being kissed is not at all like kissing. Nothing at all. Something is boiling over in his chest, molten and soft and spreading, and when Sam starts to pull away Castiel makes a desperate noise and knocks his lips back into Sam's so hard it stings.

"_Ow_," Sam says, but he doesn't sound hurt. "I think that's a yes."

"You idiot," Castiel hisses, because his lip is throbbing and his heart is pounding but he's still _exhausted. _"Now? _Now?"_

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Sam says, not sounding at all repentant. Castiel wants to shake him, he does, but what he really wants is another kiss like the first. In the next moment, Sam lowers his head and gives him exactly that, and Castiel is glad to forget the small indignity for things much sweeter.

Sweetest is lying in the dark when Sam finally falls asleep beside him, tracing the angles of his face and imaging the morning when they'll wake together. Sweetest is following him into sleep soon after, and knowing Sam will be there when he opens his eyes again.


End file.
